Consumer VC

Our guest today is Dario, Founder and CEO of Tacombi and Vista Hermosa. Tacombi is a tacqueria chain that is one of the fastest growing restaurants in the U.S. and is bringing 100% authentic Mexican food and flavors to the U.S. Vista Hermosa is their CPG brand, that produces tortilla chips and tortillas. We discuss why Dario got a VW Kombi van in the first place, why he thought New York City was the right city to start a restaurant in the U.S., how he approached expansion to different cities and some of the lessons he learned from one of his investors, Danny Meyer. Without further ado, here’s Dario.

Some of the questions I ask Dario:

1. So you purchased this Voltzwagon kombi van, why did you decide to start selling tacos in this way?
2. What took you to Playa Del Carmen?
3. Transient, tourism spot
4. What’s your approach to cooking tacos? What were you doing that was different to other taco shops/trucks?
5. Observing mexican cuisine
6. Understand what the differences were made
7. Difference to Mexican hospitality to american hospitality?
8. Taqueria’s different
9. How did you approach scaling and what brought you to the States?
10. At what point did you think about raising money?
11. What was your approach?
12. How did you build your network?
13. What led you to Danny Meyer?
14. What do investors look for when thinking about new restaurants or food companies?
15. Did you find you had to change some of your ingredients/flavor profiles to appeal to the United States audience?
16. Where was your first shop in the U.S.? Why did you decide on that location?
17. What demographic are you appealing to? How did you approach price point?
18. How do you think about design for your restaurants?
19. How do you approach new locations?
20. What was missing in the U.S. market in your mind regarding Mexican cuisine and taquerias specifically?
21. What is real mexican
22. How did Vista Hermosa start? Why did you want to build a CPG business? Why did you build both congruently?
23. What’s one part about the restaurant business that you still don’t think is obvious or known to outsiders?
24. What’s one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?
25. Professionally – Biography of Ben Franklin – An American Life
26. Personally – Pedro Paramo
27. What’s one piece of advice for any restaurant or CPG entrepreneur?

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Mike is a paid spokesperson for aVenture and is compensated $6,000.

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This was recorded live in Austin, during SXSW. Allison and Stephen Ellsworth are the founders of Poppi, the fun(ctional) prebiotic soda for all.

We discuss:

– Their introduction to prebiotics

– How they went on SharkTank

– Rebranding from Mother to Poppi

– Launching during COVID

– Expanding to new markets

– Their approach to content & more

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 Introducing aVenture - venture capital for everyone

With aVenture everyone can now invest directly into venture capital funds through our platform while also benefiting from periodic liquidity options.

If you agree, sign-up for their waitlist at aventure.vc.

aVenture is a San Francisco, California-based financial technology company that permits users to launch, manage and invest in venture funds on its platform, http://aventure.vc. aVenture operates independently of any investment advisors on its platform. Certain funds listed on the aVenture platform are provided by independent fund managers and may be registered as investment advisors in the U.S., or qualify for exempt reporting status.

Mike is a paid spokesperson for aVenture and is compensated $6,000.

Want to keep up to date with The Consumer VC? Subscribe to my newsletter Here.

Our guest today is David Friedberg, Founder of The Production Board and Bestie on the All-In podcast. The Production Board is a holding company that builds and invests in businesses that transform global systems of production and distribution across: Agriculture, Life Sciences, Energy and Manufacturing. On the consumer facing side, some of their investments and/or companies they’ve built include Supergut, The Every Company, Cana, and Soylent. The All-In podcast is one the top podcasts in the world. I try to focus this conversation on the consumer side to The Production Board’s business and how David thinks about brand building in the future. You’ll also here how he founded his previous company, The Climate Corporation and origin story to The Production Board, his investment philosophy and at the end a little chat about the All-In podcast.

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 Introducing aVenture - venture capital for everyone

With aVenture everyone can now invest directly into venture capital funds through our platform while also benefiting from periodic liquidity options.

If you agree, sign-up for their waitlist at aventure.vc.

aVenture is a San Francisco, California-based financial technology company that permits users to launch, manage and invest in venture funds on its platform, http://aventure.vc. aVenture operates independently of any investment advisors on its platform. Certain funds listed on the aVenture platform are provided by independent fund managers and may be registered as investment advisors in the U.S., or qualify for exempt reporting status.

Mike is a paid spokesperson for aVenture and is compensated $6,000.

Want to keep up to date with The Consumer VC? Subscribe to my newsletter Here.

Hey friends,

Our guest today is Mike Fata, Founder of Manitoba Harvest Hemp Foods, which sells hemp-based foods, oils, and supplements. The company was acquired for 9 figures by Tilray in 2019. Now he’s an investor, coach, writer and author of “Grow: 12 Unconventional Lessons for Becoming an Unstoppable Entrepreneur”, which will be released on March 29th 2023. Highly recommend pre-ordering your copy.

***Sponsor***

 Introducing aVenture - venture capital for everyone

With aVenture everyone can now invest directly into venture capital funds through our platform while also benefiting from periodic liquidity options.

If you agree, sign-up for their waitlist at aventure.vc.

aVenture is a San Francisco, California-based financial technology company that permits users to launch, manage and invest in venture funds on its platform, http://aventure.vc. aVenture operates independently of any investment advisors on its platform. Certain funds listed on the aVenture platform are provided by independent fund managers and may be registered as investment advisors in the U.S., or qualify for exempt reporting status.

Mike is a paid spokesperson for aVenture and is compensated $6,000.

Want to keep up to date with The Consumer VC? Subscribe to my newsletter Here.

Thank you Deb Benton for introducing me to Carle Stenmark, General Partner at VMG. VMG, short for Velocity Made Good, is one of the premier consumer private equity funds known for their investments in KIND, Quest Nutrition, Sun Bum, and Justin’s. However, Carle leads VMG’s technology practice and recently the firm went through a bit of a rebrand, which we will discuss. This conversation is around why and what types of technology companies VMG invests in. Without further ado, here’s Carle.

Some of the questions I ask Carle:

1. What attracted you to consumer investing?
2. How did you end up working at VMG?
3. What’s VMG Philosophy
4. When I think about VMG I think KIND Bars, Quest, Sun Bum, Natural Balance, Drunk Elephant, brands that have to work in retail where you make your money shipping pallets and not individual orders like to do online. Why create VMG Catalyst What was the original thesis?
5. How has VMG evolved? Why do a rebrand?
6. Did you have to present this rebrand for LPs? Does it change how your funds get deployed?
7. How do you approach tech investing and how is it different from consumer investing?
8. What’s the added value from VMG? What’s the way you’re able to make introductions?
9. The evolution That was the rebrand 
10. What’s your typical check size and range of investing on the technology side?
11. We’ve seen tech investor 
12. How will your day to day change?
13. What types of questions do you ask yourself?
14. Do you think it’s different from what it takes to grow a technology business vs a consumer business?
15. Do you think a technology business can be started from anywhere?
16. Purpose built for one vertical
17. Mirror ecommerce with online
18. Inventory management systems
19. Innovation within consumer journeys and data

1. Is there synergy with VMG growth and VMG Catalyst?
2. How is it different from VMG growth?
3. How do you think about returns and portfolio expectation from VMG Growth to VMG Catalyst?
4. How do you balance the number of investments in commerce infrastructure plays like Shogun and Swell with ecommerce / consumer facing brands selling physical goods?
5. How do you analyze founders? When do you feel is the right time to get involved in a company?
6. Recently closed $400 million. How are you thinking about capital deployment in this market?
7. Online grocery is really tough to nail. What stuck out when you made the investment in Wee!!!?
8. How are you thinking about these macro economic times? I’ve heard it’s become very tricky pricing growth rounds.
9. How do you analyze consumer pain points that could develop into big opportunities?
10. What would you like to see changed when it comes to products within ecommerce infrastructure?
11. What’s one thing he would change about venture capital?
12. What’s one book that inspired him personally? What’s one book that inspired him professionally?
13. Shoedog
14. Unbroken
15. What’s one piece of advice?

***Sponsor***

 Introducing aVenture - venture capital for everyone

With aVenture everyone can now invest directly into venture capital funds through our platform while also benefiting from periodic liquidity options.

If you agree, sign-up for their waitlist at aventure.vc.

aVenture is a San Francisco, California-based financial technology company that permits users to launch, manage and invest in venture funds on its platform, http://aventure.vc. aVenture operates independently of any investment advisors on its platform. Certain funds listed on the aVenture platform are provided by independent fund managers and may be registered as investment advisors in the U.S., or qualify for exempt reporting status.

Mike is a paid spokesperson for aVenture and is compensated $6,000.

Want to keep up to date with The Consumer VC? Subscribe to my newsletter Here.

Thank you Alex Pattis for the intro to our guest today, Kyle Cooke, Founder & CEO of Loverboy. Loverboy is a better for you alcohol beverage brand that produces sparkling hard teas, spritzes, and RTD cocktails brand. Kyle is one of the stars on the reality show “Summerhouse”, which I must admit is how I found out about the brand and now they’ve sold over $38 million worth of product. We discuss Kyle’s entrepreneurial journey and how he founded several businesses, why Loverboy worked, and how he was able to leverage Summerhouse the show, how he got into retail and approached new flavors and much much more. Without further ado, here’s Kyle.

1. What was your attraction to entrepreneurship?
2. Seems like your past experiences were founding tech companies. What was the opportunity you saw in beverage?
3. What was the overall thesis? What did you see in sparkling tea? What was your first product?
4. How did you think about testing
5. Alcohol investors call it the mob
6. Did you think about retail first? How did you get into retail?
7. What was it like founding a business and working with Amanda, your girlfriend at the time and now wife?
8. Has Summerhouse and Winterhouse helped with distribution? How do you think of those programs as marketing channels?
9. How did you think about retail footprint on a national scale? What did you learn about the craft brewery scene when it came to scaling?
10. What was hard about raising capital?
11. What ways did you leverage social to drive sales?
12. How do you approach new flavers?
13. Why did you launch cosmos?
14. How are you thinking about your business in this market? When I’ve chatted with investors many say optimize for profitability, others believe this is the perfect time for growth expansion, getting to scale to improve your gross margin profile. What’s your plan?
15. What’s one book that’s inspired you personally and professionally?
16. The Challenger Sale - flips the traditional selling
17. David Goggins - Can’t Hurt Me - the audio book

***Sponsor***

 Introducing aVenture - venture capital for everyone

With aVenture everyone can now invest directly into venture capital funds through our platform while also benefiting from periodic liquidity options.

If you agree, sign-up for their waitlist at aventure.vc.

aVenture is a San Francisco, California-based financial technology company that permits users to launch, manage and invest in venture funds on its platform, http://aventure.vc. aVenture operates independently of any investment advisors on its platform. Certain funds listed on the aVenture platform are provided by independent fund managers and may be registered as investment advisors in the U.S., or qualify for exempt reporting status.

Mike is a paid spokesperson for aVenture and is compensated $6,000.

Want to keep up to date with The Consumer VC? Subscribe to my newsletter Here.

Our guest today is Marc Washington, Founder & CEO of Supergut. Supergut is the world's only clinically validated food that nourishes the gut microbiome and delivers meaningful results across gut health, blood sugar levels, wellbeing, sleep, weight management and other categories of overall health. I’ve personally been very impressed with their products. We discuss Marc’s gut health journey and the founding of Supergut, how the microbiome affects gut health, how he thought about creating real IP and product differentiation, his approach to marketing, positioning, sales channels and who the intended consumer of Supergut’s products is, and much more.

Some of the questions I ask:

1. What got you interested in gut health and can you describe why it’s important to have a healthy gut and how to improve it? Why are microbiomes so important and why was that your focus area?
2. How does the gut microbiome affect gut health, blood sugar levels, wellbeing, weight management, and your overall health?
3. Can you provide us with deeper insight into the science behind Supergut and the DNA sequencing?
4. What was the insight and science that led to Supergut? What was missing from the market? What did consumers not understand?
5. How did you think about formulation. Why did you decide to do both bars and powders/shakes? Which came first?
6. Once you had these products, how did you approach distribution and finding your early adopters? Consumer education?
7. What was your sales channel strategy?
8. How did you think about fundraising and finding the right partner?
9. How did you raise your seed round and what has it been like working with The Production Board? What’s it like with only one investor?
10. How do you think about differentiated brand building online? How do you position yourself against other gut health / microbiome focused products and better for you products in general? There’s lots of excitement for the better for you movement and lots of products out there, but probably only a few that are going to become household names. Seems like there’s a lot of buzz about these types of products that better serve you better.
11. It’s really hard to do DTC subscription well. Is the idea to become a large DTC focused subscription company like an Athletic Greens and hope to educate and develop new habits for consumers or is it to become a wholesale brand and cross over into Walmarts and Targets?

***Sponsor***

 Introducing aVenture - venture capital for everyone

With aVenture everyone can now invest directly into venture capital funds through our platform while also benefiting from periodic liquidity options.

If you agree, sign-up for their waitlist at aventure.vc.

aVenture is a San Francisco, California-based financial technology company that permits users to launch, manage and invest in venture funds on its platform, http://aventure.vc. aVenture operates independently of any investment advisors on its platform. Certain funds listed on the aVenture platform are provided by independent fund managers and may be registered as investment advisors in the U.S., or qualify for exempt reporting status.

Mike is a paid spokesperson for aVenture and is compensated $6,000.

Want to keep up to date with The Consumer VC? Subscribe to my newsletter Here.

Our guest today is Steve Berg, one of the founders and Partners at Stride Consumer Partners. Stride Consumer is a private equity firm that specializes in partnering with talented and dynamic founders, entrepreneurs, and business leaders to build the next generation of great consumer brands. Some of their investments include Chomps, Jeni’s Ice Cream, DryBar and TRX. We discuss how Stride Consumer Partners came together, his investment philosophy with CPG brands, signs a retail outlet is working, and his 2023 outlook.

Some of the questions I ask Steve:

1. From my understanding, you’ve worked with consumer facing businesses throughout your career. Why consumer and retail?
2. How did you end up founding Stride Consumer Partners and why did you end up leaving Castanea Partners?
3. What did you learn 
4. What is your overall thesis at Stride Consumer Partners? What’s the typical revenue a company needs to be?
5. When you partner with a company, what are the elements of the business that you have to like or be true?
6. What is your due diligence process?
7. Last year you closed $420m debut fund, which congrats. How are you thinking about the market during these times and investing in consumer during these times?
8. How do you think about portfolio construction?
9. What’s been the biggest challenge to completing deals in 2022?
10. How will 2023 shape out in the consumer deal making world?
11. How do you think about down rounds and bridge rounds during these times?
12. We’ve seen the growth at all costs playbook play out time and time again in consumer. Do you believe in growth at all costs for a consumer brand?
13. What is a competitive advantage in consumer?
14. What consumer data points do you track when you think about macro trends
15. How are you thinking investing in consumer during these times?
16. What’s one book that has inspired you personally and one book that has inspired you professionally?
17. Shackleton, Endurance
18. Boys in the Boat

***Sponsor***

 Introducing aVenture - venture capital for everyone

With aVenture everyone can now invest directly into venture capital funds through our platform while also benefiting from periodic liquidity options.

If you agree, sign-up for their waitlist at aventure.vc.

aVenture is a San Francisco, California-based financial technology company that permits users to launch, manage and invest in venture funds on its platform, http://aventure.vc. aVenture operates independently of any investment advisors on its platform. Certain funds listed on the aVenture platform are provided by independent fund managers and may be registered as investment advisors in the U.S., or qualify for exempt reporting status.

Mike is a paid spokesperson for aVenture and is compensated $6,000.

Want to keep up to date with The Consumer VC? Subscribe to my newsletter Here.

Thank you Yuriy Dovzhansky for the introduction to our guests today Joey Guerra and Alex Dashefsky, founders of Airsign. Airsign makes tools for the modern living, starting with their award winning HEPA vacuum. We discuss innovation within vacuum cleaners, why they were in R&D the whole time and wanted to start their own brand instead of white labeling, how they’ve approached marketing, positioning and fundraising and much much more. Without further ado, here’s Joey and Alex.

Some of the questions I ask them:

1. I want to start with you Joey. Before you founded Airsign you had your own industrial design shop and building products for other brands. When did you think and realize you wanted to start your own brand and why focus on the vacuum?
2. What was missing about the vacuum
3. What do you think Dyson 
4. They don’t last
5. Airsign
6. John from Lakehouse ventures
7. 
   
8. How did you approach Alex, how did Alex become part of what became Airsign?
9. Was entrepreneurship ever something that you both could see yourself doing some day?
10. Why did you both feel the partnership could work and how do you each think about your skillsets?
11. What is wrong with other vacuum cleaners? What makes them non-sustainable or not as effectiveWhat was the design process like? How long did it take for you to get to the version we have today?
12. What is HEPA filtration? How did you approach
13. How do you think about the LTV
14. When did you decide to raise capital?
15. What was that process like?
16. How are you thinking about your growth strategy? I know 
17. Alex, you were running your own industrial design 
18. What are other products that you don’t think have been perfected or designed well quite yet?

Alex

• How to not F-up your startup
• Harry Potter

Joey

• The Steve Jobs
• He was really a hardware guy

***Sponsor***

 Introducing aVenture - venture capital for everyone

With aVenture everyone can now invest directly into venture capital funds through our platform while also benefiting from periodic liquidity options.

If you agree, sign-up for their waitlist at aventure.vc.

aVenture is a San Francisco, California-based financial technology company that permits users to launch, manage and invest in venture funds on its platform, http://aventure.vc. aVenture operates independently of any investment advisors on its platform. Certain funds listed on the aVenture platform are provided by independent fund managers and may be registered as investment advisors in the U.S., or qualify for exempt reporting status.

Mike is a paid spokesperson for aVenture and is compensated $6,000.

Want to keep up to date with The Consumer VC? Subscribe to my newsletter Here.

Our guest today is Mateo Marietti, founder and CEO of CookUnity. CookUnity is reinventing the food delivery experience and making it easy for busy people to eat well at home by curating a marketplace of great chefs and unique crafters. We discuss how he founded Cooking Unity, how he developed relationships with some of the top chefs in the world, how he addressed the cold start problem, the response to the pandemic, when they will hit profitability and much more.

Some of the questions I ask:

1. What got you into cooking?
2. Why did you start CookUnity?
3. Employed the cooks, delivery
4. 1,000 employees
5. Traditional
6. Fine dining
7. Everything is vertically integrated
8. The chef cooking for others, but not the most attractive option
9. Best chefs cook everyday
10. How did you attract the best chefs in the world?
11. How do you manage the supply side? Kitchen space, finding chefs, quality control, etc.?
12. How did you start?
13. Pandemic
14. Why do people want a meal from a private chef instead of a meal kit company?
15. How do you add more chefs? What’s the chef profile?
16. What’s the business model?
17. What was it like raising capital? What was the response from investors?
18. Cooking class
19. Books –
20. Danny Meyer – Setting the Table
21. Patagonia – Let My People Go Surfing

***Sponsor***

 Introducing aVenture - venture capital for everyone

With aVenture everyone can now invest directly into venture capital funds through our platform while also benefiting from periodic liquidity options.

If you agree, sign-up for their waitlist at aventure.vc.

aVenture is a San Francisco, California-based financial technology company that permits users to launch, manage and invest in venture funds on its platform, http://aventure.vc. aVenture operates independently of any investment advisors on its platform. Certain funds listed on the aVenture platform are provided by independent fund managers and may be registered as investment advisors in the U.S., or qualify for exempt reporting status.

Mike is a paid spokesperson for aVenture and is compensated $6,000.

Want to keep up to date with The Consumer VC? Subscribe to my newsletter Here.