After Selling Match.com, She Built Again – and Then Took It to Shark Tank

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On this episode of Suite Success, host Katie Cline is joined by Fran Maier—entrepreneur, investor, and co-founder of Match.com. After helping build one of the most iconic companies of the internet era (and selling it far earlier than she would have liked), Fran went on to do what most people don’t: she started again.

Her next company, BabyQuip, is now the leading baby gear rental platform in the world, operating in thousands of locations and helping families travel more easily. Along the way, she took the company to Shark Tank, scaled a nationwide network of providers, and built a business rooted in trust, safety, and hospitality.

In this conversation, Fran reflects on the early days of building Match.com, the lessons she learned from selling too soon, and how those experiences shaped the way she approaches BabyQuip—from fundraising to brand-building to long-term vision. She also shares what it was like to pitch on Shark Tank, why she believes AI is the next major technological shift, and how she’s created opportunities for thousands of women to build businesses of their own.

Throughout the episode, one theme is clear: success isn’t about getting it perfect the first time—it’s about having the conviction to build again, and the resilience to keep going.

This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lodgify and Bilt!⁠⁠⁠⁠

Watch This Episode

I’m Fran Maier and you’re listening to Suite Success.

You’ve just checked in to Suite Success.

Join me, Katie Cline, for exclusive conversations with hotel executives, hospitality leaders, and industry innovators. Together, we’ll uncover the strategies and techniques these Masters of Hospitality relentlessly refine.

Whether you’re already in the industry or just starting out, tune in every week to unlock the secret to your Suite Success. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Suite Success.

I’m your host, Katie Cline, and today I’m thrilled to welcome Fran Maier to the show.

1:40

Introducing BabyQuip

Fran is the founder and CEO of BabyQuip, the world’s leading baby gear rental platform, which she started in 2016. Prior to that, Fran was the founder of privacy compliance leader, trustee, as well as co-founder of match.com.

A sought after voice in entrepreneurship, Fran has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Forbes and more, as well as on ABC’s Shark Tank.

BabyQuip was recently included on Inc’s list of the 5,000 fastest growing companies, and Fran herself was named to Forbes 50 over 50 list. Fran, thank you so much for joining us today.

I’m thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me.

I am so delighted to get to speak with you today. I actually had reached out to you and your team to request this interview because of truly an absolutely stellar experience that I had personally had with BabyQuip.

2:33

A Vacation Saved

Before I share a little bit more about that, can you give us an overview of what the company is?

Yes, BabyQuip is trying to radically improve family travel. And we do that through BabyGear right now. We deliver BabyGear to wherever you might be traveling, different all over the country, 5,000 locations internationally, so quite a lot.

And we’ll deliver to you at the airport, deliver to your vacation rental, hotel, grandma’s house with all the gear that you need. We do this through a community of what we call quality providers. These are mostly moms.

They’re the ones who own the BabyGear, deliver it, pick it up, set it up, clean it, make sure it’s perfect for the next time.

And radically improve family travel. I think you have. My first experience was this December.

My family and I, we were traveling to Key West from New York City. Obviously, leaving New York is always a bit of a kerfluffle, so you had that working against me already. It was my first flight with my son.

He is about 10 months old now. He was, I don’t know, seven or eight months at the time, and my three-year-old daughter.

Obviously, we had a lot of gear needs at this stage in our life, and I had reached out to a friend of mine who told me about BabyQuip. I had booked it because the vacation rental that we were staying in didn’t even have a pack and play.

I was really excited when I found you guys. My expectations were hopefully the gear would be there, it would be clean, and that was really my expectation. My service provider, Molly, it just completely blew my mind.

First of all, she reached out to me before we left and said, can you give me the name of your vacation rental management company?

I’d like to reach out to them to see if I can get into your vacation rental prior to you arriving and have it all set up for you, which you as a mom know, it was huge.

The fact that she took that initiative to ask me that, I was already blown away, so I gave her the details.

Then we fly, the flight was great, but we landed in Key West and we then got to sit on the tarmac for an extra hour and a half, looking at four empty gates while the pilot told us there was no empty gate for us to park at.

That was super frustrating because we had an Instacart order that was supposed to arrive and now that was being canceled. But the one text that I did get was Molly saying, everything is all set up for you.

4:59

Hospitality And NPS

When we were finally let off the plane, we went to the rental car counter and I had a sneaky suspicion this was going to happen, even though I had booked direct, even though I had pre-arranged that I was renting a car seat from said car rental

company. Of course, as you probably know again, as a mom, what did they not have? My car seat. I was able to text Molly and say, can I add a car seat to the order?

Not only did she say yes, but she said, I live really close to the airport if you want to pick it up on your way so you can get your dog rich. It was amazing, Fran. So anyway, that’s why I’m hearing that.

That’s such a good story.

Such a good story.

I mean, talk about mom supporting moms, talk about true hospitality when every other part of the travel experience was breaking for me. There was Molly having my back. It was amazing.

Yeah.

I’m really happy to hear that. Honestly, I’m not surprised. Our quality providers really go above and beyond.

Their moms, they’re like you. They get a lot of gratification in serving somebody like themselves because they feel it could happen to them too.

It probably has.

We hear every day that families tell us, you saved the vacation, you came to the rescue. I mean, that’s what happens and it’s fantastic. The number I could put on it is we have over a 90 net promoter score.

So that’s really, really high. That’s a measure, just like a friend told you, that’s a measure of people’s propensity to tell others about BabyQuip. And that’s super, super high.

Yeah.

And it also shows me that true hospitality is in that human interaction. You had these big companies, I think it was American Airlines, I think it was Avis, who were failing me along the way, with really no apology.

They didn’t care that it had a ripple effect on the rest of my family’s vacation. But then there was Molly, an individual, who was like, I got you, girl.

Yeah. No, that’s fantastic. I love the way you’ve just leaned big into hospitality and what it means.

That’s what we’re really trying to do, too.

Yeah. And that, I think, is what it means to save someone’s vacation, is to make them be seen and feel really taken care of in a world where we often don’t.

7:27

Shark Tank Storytime

Yeah, it’s true.

Travel is super, super hard. It doesn’t look like it’s getting any easier. Yet, yeah, and I’m curious about what you think about this.

It seems to be a must-have, not a nice-to-have anymore.

I think we saw that with the pandemic. When we were not able to travel, the world kind of went a little cuckoo because we need to.

And that’s also how we can have experiences with other people, other places, open our minds a bit more, which I think we all can agree we all need a little bit more of now.

No question. No question.

Well, your team was very kind to provide a discount code for Suite Success listeners, so anyone listening or watching, that will be in the show notes. That’s code SUITSUCCESS20.

You’ll get $20 off, and hopefully you will have as amazing of an experience as I did. But what I want to talk about next, Fran, is you actually appeared on Shark Tank to talk about BabyQuick. So give us a behind-the-scenes skinny on how that was.

Well, it’s every entrepreneur’s dream to get on Shark Tank, has such a big reputation to really launch and accelerate brands and orders and all that.

It was something we pursued with a lot of intention. So when we made our application and we were in the process, whatever they said they wanted us to do, we said yes. I say wait, it was a family affair.

I was on with my son Joe Maier, who was our CTO. Also, my brother-in-law played the harried father. So that was fun.

One of the things we said yes to was having a mule, like a pack mule, come onto the stage. That was somewhat expensive. Of course, you had to pay for the pack mule and the trainer and the safety person and all of that.

Turned out to be very strategic though. We’re on the lot, we’re waiting to get filmed. There’s no guarantee they’ll film us.

I mean, you can go the whole process. Once you’re filmed, there’s no guarantee it will air. The mule did its business on the lot.

And the producers got wind that the-

Wind.

Wind, yes. The producers got wind of that. And they were like, well, we better bring BabyQuip on right now.

Right.

So it turned out to be fairly strategic.

Look, it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun to film. It was a lot of fun to get ready for it.

It was nicer for me to do it with my son. It made it a richer experience, I think. Actually, for both of us.

And we did air. So that was exciting too.

Yeah. Well, it’s funny. I heard you do another interview and you had said that the producer had suggested this mule.

And we were laughing before we started recording because I genuinely do feel like that mule when I’m traveling with all of the baby gear. Not anymore since I have found you guys though, thankfully.

But I didn’t realize also that they then made you pay for it, which of course now makes sense.

But I also imagine with your background in marketing and PR, there was a part of you that was like, our likelihood of airing is probably higher if we do have this silly little animal with us. Oh yeah.

10:55

Valuation And Growth

Like I said, we want to get to the point that we would be aired.

We wanted, you know, what you really are going for on Shark Tank is to be aired and not to be called a roach. Mr. Wonderful, some of the other sharks sometimes will take down a entrepreneur with an idea.

I didn’t want to be that. I didn’t think I’d be that. Even then we had a good story.

Now, the numbers in our Shark Tank episode are basically based on 2018 and 2019. I mean, so it’s a long time now. When the reruns come on, I’m like, oh my God, those numbers are so much lower.

We’ve obviously had a lot of growth since then. But at the time, it was pretty amazing.

Yeah. I mean, let’s talk about that because when you went in, you were asking for $500,000 for 5% stake, which is a $10 million valuation.

We’ll touch on this a little bit later, but you were also a co-founder of match.com, and I’ve heard you speak about how you almost kick yourself a little bit.

It was a good learning lesson for you of what you sold match.com for, which was much, much more. Way too little. Exactly.

Spoiler alert for anyone who hasn’t seen the Shark Tank episode, but you did not get a deal. You were in there at a $10 million valuation. What is BabyQuip looking like today?

Well, north of $35 million, closer to $40 million would be the valuation that we’re looking at right now.

Evaluations do fluctuate with the market. I will tell you right now, the market is frothy almost only for AI.

But one of the things that it’s emerging is that real companies that do real things, not digital companies, but companies that actually produce goods or services like we do.

12:59

AI And The Next Wave

Our AI is not going to wipe us out. So I’m feeling pretty good about it. This first quarter has been hot and it shocks me because we’re in the middle of this war, I guess, and the TSA issues and so on.

Nonetheless, we had a record month last month in March. So I wish I could tell you exactly why, but I’m sure I will in the next couple of weeks. One of the things that was just touching on AI, we found out that we dominate the AI search.

So it did go and more people are going directly to Chad or Clon or Gemini, asking for things like, can I rent a stroller in Key West? And we’re going to come up first.

I wanted to ask you about AI because you have spoken about actually seeing the internet begin, as we all do. I literally remember when we got the first computer in my house, like how big of a deal it was.

I found my diary entry from when I was a kid and I was like, today is the best day ever. We got a compact Presario. So I remember these times as well.

And you said that when you saw the internet start, you thought this is going to change everything. Do you feel the same way about AI?

Yeah, I do. And after you talk to a whole lot of people, it might even be more transformational.

14:27

Word Of Mouth Marketing

It wouldn’t have been here without the internet, but it’s been an incredible journey. And like I have to remind my kids, the internet happened to me. It wasn’t always there.

I was on different podcasts. The podcaster interviewer was a much younger woman. And I told her we had to develop NASH.com’s webpages for a 14-4 world.

And she had no idea what I was talking about.

No idea. It’s like, you know, when kids hit the save button now, they don’t know that that’s a floppy disk icon. They just know that that means save.

They don’t know why it means save.

Oh, I’ve heard that about my dad. It is. Oh, these relics.

So, it’s just really been a tremendous, tremendous time.

Yeah. And, you know, of course, coming up top in AI search must be so key to growth. But I would also argue that moms specifically are the most brilliant marketing tool.

In my example, right?

15:35

Pandemic Pivot Lessons

I’m going to Key West. My friend had been there previously. I reach out to her and say, who did you use?

It’s BabyQuip. And now once you’ve got me, you’ve got me for at least until I don’t need the gear anymore. And it sounds like there’s more to come with BabyQuip in the future.

So do you also see that, like the strength of word of mouth more than any other customer segment?

So we look at how many, you know, our traffic and how much of it is coming through paid versus unpaid. With unpaid, it’s like direct. People just type in BabyQuip or organic, just coming to us through some other link.

And it’s a big, big part. We also try and tap into the moms through influencer networks and social media and things like that. Just today, I think we are on Good Morning America.

So-

Oh, wow.

That, you know, a mention like that is really fantastic. God, we were so excited for the airing. We had talked to our supply network and said, it’s going to be a big, big mug, you know?

And I had a party at my house in San Francisco, and people started to cancel. I still had a full house, and we all were very excited about it. But the wrap-up that we expected obviously did not happen.

In fact, we had cancellations, and I was a little bit worried that I wouldn’t have enough money to handle all the cancellations. It was a tsunami of cancellations. But I think this kind of things sort of separates the strong from the weak.

Kind of, you know? It was what it was. We cut spending.

We stopped hiring. We took pay cuts.

17:32

Trust and Safety Standards

We really just focused on what can we do now so that when this is over, we can do better. We focused on our trust and safety program. We started to have an, we built an inventory management system, which we needed for the quality providers.

We really did a lot to strengthen the platform. And I’d say about February of 2021, the numbers started to go up pretty rapidly. It was mostly Florida, you know?

I think they were early about telling people to still come to Florida despite the pandemic, and families did. And, yeah, so now, you know, at that time, we were doing $500,000 a month. We’re now doing more than $2 million.

Wow.

Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned there trust and safety. And I imagine that has to be a really big concern of yours and your teams, because, like you said, you have these quality providers all over the nation.

But you know that, I would say by and large, it’s probably moms who are the ones doing the booking. We want to make sure it’s a new-ish product. It’s not something that feels like a relic.

We want it to be clean. We want to feel like it has those safety standards for our children. So how do you maintain that within the broader service provider organization?

Yeah, so we have more than 3,000 quality providers.

And look, we would have had that 90 net promoter score if we weren’t delivering clean and safe gear. But we really lead into it. So we trade the quality providers on our cleanliness standards, our safety standards.

We have a trust and safety committee that looks at gear, assigns a risk score to it, and the higher risk score stuff. We have specific rules, you can imagine. We have very specific rules, especially around car seats.

They cannot be used. You have to know where they came from. They can’t be expired.

And the same also for cribs and some other gear too.

I could tell you though that probably the most powerful thing, in support that we have those rules, but the most powerful thing is we have a community of these quality providers on Facebook, private community.

19:57

Training Entrepreneurs

And they really reinforce the values of cleanliness and clean and safety and going above and beyond. And they hold each other out to certain standards too.

Yeah. I mean, that was my exact experience. And you could almost feel, like you said at the beginning, Molly and my experience is going to give me products that she knows she would want to use for her own children too.

20:27

Working With Family

Right.

And how can that community be so engaged? And of course, they share all kinds of things.

They share, hey, I got a great tip, or how do I handle this customer’s request, or it’s my 500th order, and I want to tell you how BabyQuip has made a difference to my own family.

Yeah.

And that’s a big part of it for me, is that we’re really teaching these quality providers how to not only do hospitality and cleanliness and safety, but social media and affiliate marketing, how to get a Google My Business page.

They can do things locally to build their business that we can’t do. Can’t join the grandma’s group. Right?

Right.

Right.

I’m dying to join the grandma’s group one of these days.

Well, that’s a beautiful segue, because you said earlier that it was really, the Shark Tank experience was made all the more special for you, because you got to share the stage with one of your children, your son Joe.

You have multiple children, right?

Two sons, yes.

Two sons, two sons. And that Joe is also the CTO of BabyQuip. So what was it like not only to prepare for Shark Tank with him, but to get to work with him on a daily basis?

Yeah.

So early on, both my sons, you know, they’re sons of an entrepreneur, right? So and also their father is an engineer. So both my sons have computer science degrees.

And when I started the company and I started it, well, almost 10 years ago, we’re getting ready for a 10-year anniversary. And, you know, the tech was pretty basic. And they were both looking over my shoulder saying, wow, you’re getting the orders.

But man, the tech here just isn’t quite where it needs to be. Well, that’s okay. That’s oftentimes the way you start a company, is with an MVP or whatever.

But a couple of years later, the co-founder decided, you know, startups aren’t for everybody. And I called, I knew Joe was in a position that he had been at Accenture for a number of years. He was ready for a change.

And I called him and I said, you know, Kerry is leaving. And he just says immediately, before I could say anything else, he says, I’m in.

So when he said, I’m in, that just gave me an incredible sense of, oh my God, he’s going to help me, and I’m going to be able to trust him. And for him, it was a pretty big risk. I mean, it was very early stage.

We were not doing very many orders, you know, maybe 500 orders a month. You know, funding was not necessarily secured for the whole thing.

23:22

Startup Dynamics

And he came in, and it’s now almost eight years. So there were a few rules. I used to call him Joey.

I can’t call him that anymore. It’s Joe, and I don’t call him Joe. He doesn’t call me mom very often.

He certainly doesn’t call me mom at work in front of other people, you know. And, you know, I can’t micromanage him. It’s just not going to happen.

And, you know, but he’s a great guy. Our tech has scaled. You know, we’ve introduced new products.

We’ve introduced apps. We’re integrating AI. There’s all kinds of things that we’re doing.

It’s almost never ending what that roadmap has on it. And he’s grown his team. He’s grown as a CTO.

And it’s really been quite great for me.

Yeah. And I think it speaks really highly of your relationship together.

Because, like you said, for him to leave a company like Accenture, for him to especially join this business, which I’m going to guess at the time he probably wasn’t a dad himself, or isn’t right now a dad himself.

He still isn’t. And just for your listeners, he’s a great catch.

Well, we do have to talk about match.com at some point. So I feel like the matchmaking is still in you, Fran. But you heard it here first, guys.

It’s on the market.

24:49

Moms And Career Shifts

No, but I mean, you know, for me as a mom, you can tell me what BabyQuip does. And immediately I’m like, what a brilliant idea. We need this.

Like, this is incredible. But for a younger single man who doesn’t have children, I really think that that just shows how much he believes in you.

Yeah, thank you. I think he does. And we have a very good relationship.

And I can’t wait to celebrate our 10th anniversary with him. That’ll be really, really great. And he’s a lot of fun too.

So, you know, it’s been quite the journey.

25:26

Why Providers Join

And I tell you, Katie, there’s not a lot of mom son teams doing startups. It’s pretty unusual. The other thing that really shocks me is how much she knows about Baby Gear.

Even more of making him a great catch.

Even more of making him a great catch.

I mean, no, and it’s true.

And it goes back to what you said about your quality providers earlier too, about how a lot of them themselves are moms, stay at home moms, almost really learning how to become entrepreneurs from you at the top, being an entrepreneur yourself and

giving them this platform to build their own business. And with everything you were saying about AI, I mean, I’m feeling this at my stage of life. I’m seeing a lot of my friends go through this.

When we have young children, the typical corporate track becomes almost unsustainable at a certain point, right? Because we have different priorities now and the corporate track hasn’t changed.

26:18

Financial Freedom Stories

And while we were very happy to grind, grind, grind, grind, grind in our 20s and even our 30s, as we get older, you start to really wonder, where am I putting my time?

And that’s why I just think it’s so powerful on both sides, what you’re doing for moms who are traveling, but also what you’re providing to moms who are the ones providing the gear. Yeah.

So when I look at the motivations of the quality providers, and think about where they’re coming from, and we ask them these kinds of questions, most of the time the extra money is just going to pay household bills.

And for a lot of families, these big economy kind of extra stuff is pretty critical to making their household economics work. I mean, it’s almost not enough to have two jobs for some families, right?

What also is very unique is they can do this with their kids.

So there’s a couple of instances, and there may be even more that I don’t know about, where moms have shared that they were able to leave an abusive relationship because they have the security of doing BabyQuip, then they could do that with their

kids. I mean, that’s pretty powerful. It’s also pretty powerful for a family to be able to go to Disneyland or Disney World with the money that they made from BabyQuip, right? And therefore, they’re making memories for their families as well.

27:54

Travel Gear Pain Points

And that’s a big motivation for me, you know?

Absolutely. I have seen this in my own life, actually. When we have children, still to this day, it seems like the lion share of that is put on the woman.

And when I say in my own life, I don’t mean in my personal relationship, I’m extremely lucky to have a partner who does more than half of the share. But I see it in friends, I see it in family members, in their relationships.

And it’s really been such a light bulb moment for me to see firsthand how having your own money, having control of finances is going to give you the flexibility to make the right choices for yourself, for your children, where when you are reliant on

Yeah.

Well, it’s a balance for everybody, and it doesn’t appear to be getting easier.

And with our side of it, the customer side, the vacationer side, families are working so hard that when they go on vacation, they do not want to sacrifice sleep, and they really want to maximize their time with their families or seeing the sites or

whatever it is. And so we help with that too.

Exactly, exactly. The little things I think that might be obvious to the listener are things like pack-in plays and high chairs and things that you’re like, of course you need that for a stay.

Now, a lot of vacation rentals don’t provide that, whether it be they didn’t realize it’s a need, maybe they’re not a parent themself, or maybe they’re a cheaper owner, you know, whoever it is. It even is true in hotels.

I mean, more of the full-service chains tend to have those offers on hand, but maybe more of the budget options don’t have the staff to be able to provide that for guests and to the same level.

And I think what’s really amazing about BabyQuip for the travel industry, for the hospitality industry, is if you are not able to or not interested in providing these options, what you might not have realized is you are taking away a whole group of

guests who are booking. guests who are booking.

29:58

Partnerships and Expansion

I would look at properties on Airbnb and Verbo that are going to allow me to have a pack and play to book. That might mean I have to pay more money or be in a less desirable area to have that. Now, I don’t have to do that.

I can actually choose the vacation rental or the hotel that makes sense for me and my trip as long as I know that a BabyQuip service provider is there. I feel like this entire episode is going to sound like an ad. It is not.

I love it.

A very passionate mom who also sees a huge unlock for our hotels, our vacation rentals.

Something interesting I heard in a couple of the interviews that you did is that you actually used to be, maybe you still are, but you used to be an Airbnb and Verbo host yourself, really when those companies were starting out.

That’s how I got into it. But before I tell you that, let me tell you, we have a deal with Verbo. So when you’re checking out a Verbo, you should be able to see BabyQuip and complete your entire vacation setup there.

That’s one point. Second point, we’re also starting to rent other kinds of care.

31:09

From Host To CEO

So if you’re going to a beach location, I’m not sure if you did this, Katie, but did you rent beach chairs and coolers?

We didn’t have to rent beach chairs for ourselves because our vacation rental was able to provide those, but we did rent a beach chair for my daughter because the big kind of sports chair was fine for us, but we wanted her to be able to sit and relax

Yeah.

So we’re expanding our offerings, pet and beach and some outdoor gear, and even rent and appliances. People sometimes go to a place and they need a blender. They want a blender or they want a microwave or something like that.

Then one of the other areas that we’re going into is mobility. So if you were traveling maybe with your grandfather who had a need for a walker or a wheelchair or something like that. But yes, this is how I got into BabyQuip.

I bought a house in San Francisco in 2012. Five or six blocks up from Airbnb’s headquarters. I did not buy the house thinking I would do this, but within about six months, I was renting rooms in my home.

I had people come in and out all the time. I didn’t even tell other people about it because I didn’t want to sound like this old English woman who’s down on her luck, who has to bring in borders, that trope.

I ended up liking it and I started to buy more properties. I bought my first property in Santa Fe, which is my hometown where I’m coming to you from right now. Then I bought another property, then another property, and I was doing really well.

All of that was with the intention of using them as short-term rentals too, as well as your health.

Yeah.

There was a good time to get into short-term rentals. Interest rates were low, the regulatory lift wasn’t nearly as hard. As soon as they came out with Premier Host or Superhost, I quickly did that.

I was making good money as a kick economy person, like all of a sudden after being an entrepreneur. A different kind of entrepreneur, right? Yeah.

Of course, like any good entrepreneur, I’m thinking, what are the businesses that are going to emerge from this new way people are traveling and this new way people are working? Which was genuinely interesting to me.

One of the things about being in San Francisco, especially during times of change, is you see things before anybody else sees them. And you’ll even think you’re late to the game, but you’re not.

So I was kind of looking around for what businesses could emerge, and there were property management companies and cleaning companies and things like that. And then I was consulting at Women’s Startup Lab as a mentor for female entrepreneurs.

And the scale comes in from Santa Fe, of all places. So of course, I’m going to meet with her. And in fact, I saw her yesterday because we’re getting ready for our 10th anniversary.

I want to include her. And she gave me the pitch for what was then called BabyAirs. And it was basically the early stages of BabyQuip.

And in that meeting, I said, well, I think I should be your CEO. And she didn’t say yes right away, but she’s happy with outcome. She has a nice bit of the business.

And we started it. And I think for me, Katie, I felt like because of my experience with Match, because my experience of an Airbnb host, because my experience just raising money and building companies, I knew I could do this.

And at that point, I’m in my mid-50s. And I’m kind of like not done yet. I’ve got another one in me.

And here we are 10 years later.

Wow. There’s so much to talk about in that. So I also host another podcast called Second Home First, because that is a lot of my story, kind of what you’re talking about with buying properties and renting them out.

I live in New York City. It is extremely expensive to buy a home here, right?

And we maybe could have figured it out, but do you want to really spend a million dollars for 500 square feet in a place that you’re not sure if you want to raise your children with? I didn’t. So we decided to buy our second home first.

We bought a place upstate. I come from a hotel background. I thought maybe if I put it on Airbnb and Verbo, I can offset a little of my costs and I’ll have this place that I can bring my family to create these memories.

Well, of course, much like you, very quickly, I saw not only was I covering all the costs, but I was profiting from it. Now I have three vacation homes. Someone who never thought should be able to.

And now you’re doing this podcast.

And I have this podcast and second home first as well.

And I just love how you took that experience of like seeing how much that could actually influence your life. And now you’ve created that with BabyQuip for your service providers as well.

Yeah. And I could tell you, as a verbal and Airbnb host, I would have a pack and play, but that’s it.

And I have a pack and play, a high chair and a baby gate. But let me tell you, I rented a whole lot more than that from you guys.

Right. And what we have found, and it makes sense. I mean, think about grandparents too, who buy the gear for the three month old, and then the kids a year and a half, the next time they see them, and nothing works.

36:47

Match.com Lessons Learned

It’s too much gear. And to store it, to buy it, also, you know, we have liability insurance. I mean, in Knock on Wood, nothing’s ever happened.

But as a host, do I really want to take on that responsibility with baby care, you know? And it’s expensive too. And families want much more than, a lot of families still want to put their baby in a pack and play.

They’re a new baby, you know, or they really want a full-size crib. And also, and I even remember this, they want toys. I remember being a kid going to somebody else’s house and how fun because they had different toys, you know?

And yeah, it would be great because we would play with those toys and the adults would get to do what they want to do.

Right, right. We need to talk a little bit about match.com. And I know we mentioned earlier you sold for less than you wanted to or that you think you should have.

So I guess if you just give us really that kind of overview of that story and those lessons that you’ve now taken into all of your incredible businesses from then.

Yeah, thank you. First of all, it was super exciting. I joined Match at the very end of 1994.

Okay. I had just seen the Internet in AOL months before at my prior job. And I started because, well, I was in San Francisco and I went to my business school reunion at Stanford.

And Gary Kremen, who started Match, but also Electric Classifieds, which was the company that Match was under, he wanted somebody with good marketing. And I had just spent a few years with Clorox company doing brand.

So I was itchy, you know, I saw what was happening. I knew it would change everything. So I jumped in feet first, let’s do it.

And from the beginning, I was in charge of Match. But the company was really trying to go after the classified advertising market. And this is before Craigslist or eBay or Facebook Marketplace, of course.

Okay, so very early on. And in fact, I think one of the things that happened is we were so early. So Gary and I wanted to make Match a clean, well-lit place.

We wanted it to be attractive to women. We figured that if women came, the men would follow. And that really guided a lot of the decisions.

And I take responsibility for the fact that no Internet dating site asks you for how much you weigh. Because I knew that’s not a question women wanted to answer. No.

And that’s just a small thing. And right prior to Match, I was at AAA in Northern California. I really understood the concept of membership.

And that’s another thing that I pushed for match.com, which is still pretty much the business model.

Yeah.

All that being said, we were number one. We did affiliate marketing before it was called affiliate marketing. We owned the public relations for this emerging online dating.

We grew very quickly. We grew beyond our focus of the Bay Area to all of the US and the international very, very quickly. We were number one by far.

We were even cash flow positive. Wow.

And the board, who was much more focused on the classified advertising opportunity and getting newspapers to go on electric classifieds to build their business, they were more interested in that because we were so early.

Personals on newspapers, which is what we were compared to, were kind of sleazy and the concepts of brand, community, social media, all of marketplaces on the Internet were nascent. It was just so early.

So even though we were dominating, we were number one, they decided to sell it. It wasn’t my decision. And we sold it for less than $8 million.

Okay. Pretty big F up for everyone involved. Okay.

That was a mistake. My real mistake, and I think this happens a lot to female entrepreneurs or women in general, is I didn’t have the confidence to take the company. I probably could have gathered some investors and stuck with the company.

And a year later, it sold for over $70 million to what would become part of IAC. And then of course, now it’s a billion dollar plus company.

I think there was sexism here, too, because had I been a guy, they probably would have said, well, why don’t you get the investors and make this happen?

Right.

So it was a tough lesson. A few years later at Trustee, which was a nonprofit when I joined it, all about privacy and trusted brands, which is kind of what I do, trusted brands.

I knew we had to become a for-profit company to really address the issues of social media, advertising, all the privacy issues that we’re still working on. Right. And this time I did raise the money and I did take it to the next level.

Now it’s not as big as a match, but I got a second chance and I did it better the second time.

And now the third.

I don’t know if it’s got second chances. Yeah. And this one, BabyQuip, I definitely came into it a lot more intentional about how I want to build this company.

And it’s taken a little bit longer than I expected to get to this point. But from the very beginning, I wanted partnerships. I want to build a good brand.

I wanted to lean into trust and safety. In fact, that was an important part of match. We were the first to come up with how to date safely online and guidance and all of that.

So I knew that that was important. In fact, they’re very similar a lot of ways. And, but I expect a better outcome for me anyway.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you for sharing that story so vulnerably, because I think unfortunately, we’re often told that mistakes are a bad thing.

43:22

Women and Venture Capital

And actually, if you look at your trajectory since and all the things that you’ve done, it was almost like it needed to happen that way, so that you could build businesses differently and also motivate other women out there to say like, why don’t you

believe in yourself more? You said something earlier where you said, I knew I could do this, which feels like a big difference from prior to that saying, you could feel a bit like you were late to the game, or on another podcast, I know you said

something along the lines of you thought you were behind. And I think that is such a common feeling, particularly amongst women who are now with social media, comparing ourselves to everyone else.

We all also know that you’re only getting probably like an eighth of the reality on social media of what’s actually happening behind the scenes. But I think that’s just so powerful to hear you reflect on it like that.

Thank you so much. Well, you know, I’m now 64 years old and for the last few years, even before BabyQuip, I’m pretty dedicated to trying to help women do better as entrepreneurs. But it’s really tough out there.

I’m sure you know, women get, this number is so embarrassing, two to three percent of the venture capital dollars.

I can’t believe that’s still real.

That’s still real despite the fact that a lot of funds are merged to try and help women. Back when I was doing Match or even Trustark, there weren’t accelerators and incubators aimed at helping women. I mean, now there are.

There’s a lot more support for female entrepreneurs. Yet, the people who fund them just really don’t think women have enough good ideas that they want to put their money behind. That’s just ridiculous.

There’s just no way that women who have been out-graduating men 60, 40, for over 10 plus years, don’t have the good ideas. Sure, I could tell women, okay, get your confidence up. You know what your business is.

You know how to do it. Network, work on your pitch. I could give women all kinds of advice to be more successful at raising money.

But when you’re looking at the odds of two to three percent, even if it was 20 or 30 percent, there’s something wrong. I think 10 years ago, I was like, well, we’re just going to work on this problem. Now, I’m like, this is really bad.

It’s not getting better. Firms that are focused on women are now getting pressure, or underserved minorities are now getting pressure because they’re DEI, and that’s not in vogue anymore. Tell me.

This is a difficult time. I’m super happy that BabyQuip is successful. I think we’re going to have a great exit one of these days.

My employees and my investors, I hope, we’re celebrating our 10th anniversary. That in itself is a big deal. But the underlying challenge is, and I have everything going for me, right?

The right kind of degree early on from Stanford and Stanford Business School, a really good network of connections. A lot of my friends from business school and other people I know have invested in the company.

And still, it’s been a slog to raise money.

Wow. That is equally empowering and depressing at the same time. And you’re right, like even if the numbers, even if your likelihood was 10x more, it still wouldn’t be enough.

And add on top of that, that I think a lot of us as women, we are perfectionists and we need to know everything is going to go right. You know, for myself, I’m interested in owning a hotel.

And all of my underwriting that I’ve been doing has been so conservative because what if I mess up, right? And I heard another interview that you did where you were like, sometimes I just think, how would a man pitch this?

And we know it would be vastly different from the way that I’m trying to pitch this.

Yeah, you know, I mean, got to have a little bit of a risk profile. You know, you’ve got to be able to believe in yourself and don’t get caught up in all the stuff that could go wrong.

Don’t get caught up in all the stuff that you’ll have to do later. Take it one day at a time. Don’t solve tomorrow’s problems today.

That’s the perfect advice to end on.

Fran, I want to ask you the last three questions that I ask every guest. And the first is, what was the best hospitality experience that you’ve ever had?

Wow, that’s a really good question. I have a recency bias, okay? But I really like Rancho La Proteta as a wellness retreat just south of the border in Tecate, Mexico.

You know, you almost, it’s everything. It’s the classes, the grounds, the rooms aren’t fancy, but they’re fine. But the food, just the whole inclusive experience is really, really great.

And on the flip side of that, what was the worst hospitality experience you’ve ever had?

Oh, boy.

You know, driving from Santa Fe to San Francisco and staying in Needles, Arizona or Needles, California. I’m not sure which one’s right there, the bugs and stuff. It was awful.

Oh, the name says it all, I think.

So yes, that definitely. Yeah.

Another experience, I did this with my kids. We did a rafting trip down the Colorado River, Grand Canyon. Fantastic.

Fantastic.

That sounds like a core memory right there.

Yeah. It was really great.

Final question for you. What does hospitality mean to you? Is there anyone, it could be a person, it could be a brand that you think has truly mastered it?

Well, hospitality means that you’re not just providing the room or the destination, but you’re providing more of an experience.

That experience is focused on you and your comfort and what you need. It doesn’t always have to be high-end, it just needs to really be focused on you and what you need.

The person who comes to mind is a friend of mine, and I’m sure you know who he is, Chip Conley.

50:02

Suite Summary

And I recently, Chip was with Joy DeVille, his own hotel group, then he was head of hospitality at Airbnb, and now he’s doing something called Modern Elder Academy, which is two destinations, one here in Santa Fe, one in Baja, California, where

people, usually more middle-aged people, come together to explore different things, finding their purpose. I went to a matchmaking seminar for a few days. I know that sounds funny.

I think Chip really tries to have an inclusive, complete experience for his guests, and I appreciate that.

That’s a great, great one. Well, Fran, thank you so much. It has been a true honor to have you with us today.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you, Katie.

All right, everyone, it’s time for today’s Suite Summary, where I break down the key insights and actionable takeaways from today’s conversation.

It’s obvious that Fran has built incredible businesses, many of which didn’t just succeed, but created entirely new categories. But what stood out to me the most wasn’t just what she built, it was how she kept going.

She might regret selling match.com for only $8 million. She might regret even more that she didn’t try to raise the capital herself to buy it, but she didn’t let those mistakes define her.

She learned from them, she tried again, and each time she built another business, she applied what she had learned. And that decision to keep going didn’t just change her trajectory, it changed so many others too.

And that decision to keep going didn’t just change her trajectory, it changed so many others too.

Not just her families, not just her corporate team, but equally important, the thousands of quality providers around the nation that are able to support their families and build businesses of their own because of what she has built with BabyQuip.

That ripple only exists because she didn’t stop. In hospitality, we have a similar opportunity each and every day. We interact with so many different people, and whether we realize it or not, we leave an impression on each and every one of them.

But what kind of impression is it that we’re leaving? Is it forgettable, is it transactional, downright negative, or is it something they’re still talking about months later, like I am with Molly and my BabyQuip experience?

Because it’s easy to get caught up in our own stress, our own problems, the day-to-day fires we need to put out.

But as Fran’s story proves, true hospitality is choosing excellence in what we deliver to someone else, regardless of what’s happening behind the scenes. And that concludes another episode of Suite Success.

If you enjoyed today’s conversation, please subscribe, rate and review the show. We all know how important those five-star reviews are. I also want to say a massive thank you to each and every one of you for tuning in.

It means the absolute world to me. And I’d love to hear from you. If you have ideas for future guests, new topics to cover, or even just want to say hi, don’t be shy.

Message me through our website, suitesuccesspodcast.com or on social media, at suitesuccesspodcast. That’s sweet like hotel suite. Once again, I’m your host, Katie Cline, and I’m super excited to see you all next week.