Why Founders are Moving to Chattanooga, Tennessee to Lock-in | Cam Doody at Brickyard
The Peel with Turner Novak
Turner Novak
4.6 • 11 Ratings
🗓️ 27 February 2025
⏱️ 106 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Cam Doody is the Co-founder and General Partner of Brickyard, the venture capital firm moving founders to Chattanooga, Tennessee to lock-in with no distractions until they find product market fit.
Brickyard is one of the most unique venture firms you’ll ever come across, and we get into how it how it was inspired by a 16x fund based in Chattanooga, why Cam and his co-founders started it during ZIRP, and why they hope everyone copies their model.
We also get into Cam’s startup Bellhops, which he started in 2011 and has since grown into the third largest moving company in the US. We talk running a local services business, why 5-star review systems don’t work, and how U-Haul almost killed Bellhops overnight back in 2016.
Thanks to Nader Khalil, Matt Harb, Austin Beveridge, and Spencer Levitt for their help brainstorming topics for Cam!
Timestamps:
(0:00) Intro
(03:33) Chattanooga: Dirty manufacturing city to high tech
(05:23) Brickyard’s precursor, the Lamp Post Group (a 16x fund)
(09:46) How ZIRP screwed up early stage investing
(13:49) What is Brickayrd?
(21:14) Getting Brickyard off the ground in 2021
(26:25) 100+ year old rug warehouse + maintenance nightmares
(33:13) Cam wants everyone to copy Brickyard
(36:31) Why economic development startup programs don’t work
(38:59) YC teams doing Brickyard to escape the Trough of Sorrow
(44:07) How Brickyard companies raise Series As
(46:10) Nvidia acquiring Brev
(52:18) How to deal with a co-founder breakup
(55:45) Starting Bellhop to build a better moving company
(1:02:27) How U-Haul almost killed them overnight
(1:06:54) Marketing tactics for a local services business
(1:12:05) Why 5-star review systems don’t work
(1:18:16) How Cam’s view of VC’s changed after becoming one
(1:20:37) Ways VC’s actually add value
(1:25:05) The thesis for Bitcoin
(1:39:21) Cam’s annual remote desert island vacation
Referenced
Check out Brickyard: https://www.justlaybrick.com/
The Trough of Sorrow: https://andrewchen.com/after-the-techcrunch-bump-life-in-the-trough-of-sorrow/
Bellhops: https://www.getbellhops.com/
Follow Cam
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/camdoody
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cam-doody-b489a124
Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It was like the most magical experience that I could ever imagine as a founder. |
| 0:06.2 | Like we were in a building locked in with a bunch of other people that were pushing just |
| 0:12.0 | as hard as we were. |
| 0:13.1 | We only had one thing to do. |
| 0:15.1 | You know, we weren't going to networking events or meetups or our belief is that the only |
| 0:19.8 | things that are really accretive to founders in this |
| 0:22.5 | stage and the trough of sorrow are being around other founders that are in your exact stage |
| 0:27.3 | that are sort of pushing you and having this radical focus around not having anything else in |
| 0:33.7 | your life that you really need to think about. We're not an accelerator. There's no programming. |
| 0:37.9 | There's no demo day. If we get to the point of writing a check in your company, you are self-selecting |
| 0:44.8 | to move to functionally in the middle of nowhere to just lock in. Welcome to the Pee. I'm your host, |
| 0:51.2 | Turner Novak, founder of Banana Capital. Today's guest is Camduty, co-founder of Brickyard, the Metro Capital firm, moving founders to Chattanooga, Tennessee to lock in with no distractions until they find product market fit. There's one rule at Brickyard, and that's you post your numbers. We began how market dynamics during ZERP led to Brickyard. When we were writing angel checks before Brickyard, we felt like Rolex dealers in the 80s. |
| 1:13.6 | Our first job was identify the fakes. |
| 1:17.6 | A Brickyard evolved from the Lampost Group, a 16-X fund that led Cam C-ground back in 2012, |
| 1:22.6 | and why startup programs focused on economic development don't work. |
| 1:26.6 | The best founders, the second they smell a whiff of economic development or ulterior incentive, |
| 1:32.5 | they're just gone. |
| 1:33.9 | And what Cam thinks about people copying them up. |
| 1:36.5 | I went there to be camps like Brickyard all over the country. |
| 1:39.2 | We also get into lessons from Cam's startup bellhops, which is now one of the largest |
| 1:43.0 | moving companies in the U.S. In the early days, we had like eight college students that did nothing but make |
| 1:49.2 | customers thank you videos. Why five-star review systems don't work. One of my strongest held |
... |
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