Consumer VC

By Mike GelbBusiness Investing

Consumer VC episodes

May 24, 2022Amy Lacey (Cali’flour Foods) - How she created a cauliflower pizza dough that exploded online and the changes she had to make for retail
Our guest today is Amy Lacey, founder of Cali’flour Foods. Cali’flour makes craveable comfort food that’s always low carb. With simple fresh ingredients and no fillers. That includes pizzas, crusts, flatbreads, crackers and full on entrees. We discuss why Amy became an entrepreneur, how she created a cauliflower pizza recipe that wasn’t brittle and didn’t fall apart, even with incredible ecommerce sales, why she decided to partner with a retail-minded investor as opposed to an ecommerce minded one, their approach to packaging when they entered stores and much more.
What was your attraction to entrepreneurship?
What led to the founding of Cali'flour Foods and better for you alternatives for pizza?
How did you first make cauliflower pizza since cauliflower is so brittle?
What was the first step to starting your company?
How did you go about developing your supply chain?
Where was your first point of distribution?
What was the initial reaction?
At what point were you looking for investment?
What were some of the differences in the business when you raised capital?
Did you packaging change to fit into retail?
How did you approach scale?
Was it tough scaling in retail and also trying to continue to scale online?
Mike Anderson came in as CEO. What was that transition like?
It seems like using cauliflower as a substitute ingredient in other products has become the standard. Do you feel like you've led the charge here?
What's one thing you would change about fundraising?
What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?
Personally - Four Agreements
The One Thing
Storybrand by Donald Miller
What's the best piece of advice that you've received?
What's the best piece of advice for any entrepreneur?
47 min
May 19, 2022Melissa Urban (Whole30) - How she founded Whole30 and created her own health & wellness content empire
Our guest today is Melissa Urban, Founder of Whole30. The Whole30 program eliminates cravings, improves physical energy and quality of sleep and has changed millions of people’s lives. It’s a pretty amazing story. We’re going to hear how Melissa changed her lifestyle completely, getting into nutrition and getting in shape. Why she started a blog and ran this 30 day diet experiment and that turned into what became Whole30. How she approaches partnerships with CPG brands that fit the Whole30 identity, and what led her to create her own products. Without further ado, here’s Melissa
When did you become interested in nutrition and fitness?
Why did you decide to blog?
What compelled you to write a book?t
How do you approach partnerships or relationships with brands?
Why did you decide on the name Whole30?
How did you think about the differences between the Whole30 diet and the Paleo diet?
What was the original intention of the brand?
Who is the target audience for Whole30?
Was there a clear path to success and a business plan or were you just kind of figuring it out?
When did you decide to start launching your own products? I.e. salad dressings?
How do you select the right partners to license products for?
Did you ever think about raising capital for Whole30?
There are lots of food fads out there. How do you think about longevity, sustainability with Whole30?
What do you think is misunderstood about nutrition?
Do you iterate what’s allowed and not allowed on Whole30?
Recently you came out and said that MSG for example is now ok on Whole30 when it wasn’t allowed on the diet before. How do you think and approach the evolution of Whole30?
Do you have any advice for other founders in your willingness to learn and evolve?
What do you see as the future of wellness or what makes you excited about?
What’s one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?
The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter
Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
What’s one piece of advice for founders?
43 min
May 17, 2022Jordan Gaspar (AF Ventures) - How she transitioned from law to investor, when brands are going omnichannel, and her approach to portfolio construction
Our guest today is Jordan Gaspar, the Managing Partner at AF Ventures. AF Ventures is dedicated to growing the next generation of brands, having invested in Circul, By Heart and Harmless Harvest. We discuss how she founded AF Ventures and leveraged her network as a lawyer, and how she thinks about growth for digitally native brands in this current age.
Some of the questions I ask her:
Can you please share a little about AF Ventures background?
What was your initial attraction to consumer brands?
How has AF Ventures evolved over the past few years?
What are the most recent trends within consumer that you are most passionate about?
How has COVID impacted recent trends?
Does a product “need to work in retail” for you to invest?
Why did you decide to raise a SPAC?
We’ve also seen incredible growth from brands despite global supply chain issues. As an investor and advisor, how do you navigate or comprehend where we are currently at?
What’s one thing you would change about venture capital?
What VC advice do you have for entrepreneurs/founders?
31 min
May 12, 2022Marc Hostovsky (Minoan) - How he's creating 'native retail', connecting ecommerce and in real life experiences to try out products
My guest today is Marc Hostovsky, founder of Minoan. Minoan connects people with products in spaces that feel like home. This is a concept that Marc calls native retail. We discuss what’s missing today when it comes to trying out products, the intersection of ecommerce and retail and what is actually native retail.
Here are the questions I ask Marc:
What was your attraction in ecommerce? Why did you want to work in ecommerce?
What were some of your learnings at Walmart that have impacted you?
What were you doing at Walmart?
The importance of pace and hiring
Hiring missionaries vs mercenaries
What was the insight that led to the founding of Minoan?
Why did you decide to build a product that wasn’t in ecommerce but was around physical retail or native retail?
Not really having products to shine
Why do people like shopping in stores?
Real world shoppable experiences - be in moments of use, integrating commerce
What are the use cases? Walk us through when and why a customer would use Minoan?
Is the goal to eventually to become an online retailer or stay as a marketplace?
What’s the customer experience like?
How did you first approach hotels, Airbnbs and other places?
How do you partner?
How do you monetize? Is it a marketplace model?
How do you work with brands?
What was your approach to growth?
What types of properties do you look for?
What was your approach to raising money?
What was challenging about the process?
What’s one thing you would change about the fundraising process?
What’s one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?
Why Buddism is true? By Robert Wright
Competing Against Luck
What’s one piece of advice you have for founders?
39 min
May 05, 2022Natalie Gordon (Babylist) - How she combined content and commerce to better serve expecting parents, her approach to raising capital and creative product partnerships
Our guest today is Natalie Gordon, founder and CEO of Babylist. Babylist is a baby registry and ecommerce platform, combining content, commerce and data to serve millions of expecting and new parents. We focus on why Natalie decided to start Babylist when she just became a new mother, how reading The Lean Startup impacted her decision making to solving the chicken and the egg problem of marketplaces, finding product-market fit and a unique approach to partnerships.
Here are some of the questions I ask Natalie:
1. What was the insight that led to the founding of Babylist?
11 years ago - creating your own baby registry
There must be a better way!!!!
Worked on another startup in the language learning space
If you can work on it for
Small aspirations day by day
Lean startup
Inflection point on Pinterest
Did you always want to become an entrepreneur?
What were some lessons learned during your time at Amazon that were helpful in your journey?
What were some of the first steps that you had to take to validate your idea?
How do you think about using content to lead to curation to purchase?
What are the requirements to sell on Babylist?
When you have a marketplace, you have a chicken and the egg problem. What were the first steps you took to solve for it? Was it tougher getting supply going vs. demand or vise versa?
Did you keep inventory?
How did you approach demand / customer acquititon channels in the early days?
How did you approach raising capital?
What were some of the moments that as you look back were actually huge unlocks for your business?
How did you make the business more sustainable for you
You’ve now started selling your own products and aren’t just a marketplace. How do you think about what products to launch? What has been the reaction?
How do you think about trying and testing out products for parents online and in brick and mortar?
What has been the result during the pandemic when it comes to purchase behavior?
What’s one thing you would change about venture capital?
What’s one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?
Professionally: No rules rules by Reid Hastings
Personally: Dear Sugar - online advice column
What’s one piece of advice that you have for founders?
Long game
Relationships are long
33 min
May 03, 2022Nick Saltarelli (Mid-Day Squares) - How he built a passionate audience, why his family decided to found a chocolate company, and their approach to content
Our guest today is Nick Saltarelli one of the Co-founders of Mid-Day Squares. Mid-Day Squares is the first functional chocolate bar. Nick founded the company with his wife, Leslie and brother-in-law Jake. We discuss how and why his family wanted to start a chocolate company, why they decided to vertically integrate instead of outsourcing manufacturing, their combination of marrying content with a CPG and much more. Without further ado, here’s Nick.
And there you have it. I hope you all enjoyed Nick’s story of how and why he started Mid-Day Squares.
Did you always want to know you wanted to be an entrepreneur?
What were some of the pivotal moments in your life that helped shaped you personally and professionally, how you wanted to work with people?
Why did you focus on CPG?
How did you meet Lez?
How did you land on chocolate?
Why did you decide to share everything publicly?
How did Jake come on board?
Is it a tough dynamic working with your wife and your brother-in-law?
What was your process for raising capital?
How did you think about brand and branding?
Why did you decide to create your own manufacturing plant vs. outsourcing manufacturing?
How do you think about storytelling and building a passionate audience?
39 min
April 28, 2022Michael Duda (Bullish) - How to invest in brands that can appeal to the early majority, the two ways to win as a brand, and why all consumers are liars
Our guest today is our second second time guest, Mike Duda. Mike is the General Partner at Bullish. Bullish is a consumer only venture capital fund and creative agency. Some of their investments include Sunday, Spark Grills, Hu, Care/of. I mention these brands specifically because all the founders of those companies have been on the podcast but they’ve also invested in Peloton, Harry’s Warby Parker. If you want to learn the founding story of how Mike founded Bullish, highly recommend his first episode in 2020. In this episode we focus on his process to identifying a consumer insight, what needs to happen in order for an insight to become an investment opportunity and his analysis on consumer behavior. I was delighted Mike was willing to come back on the show for a chat, without further ado, here he is.
Questions I ask Mike:
What’s your process to identifying a nascent consumer insight?
I’ve had investors come on the show talk about their jobs are to identify the difference between a consumer trend and a fad. How do you make that distinction?
What has to happen in order for a trend to become big?
One of the massive trends in 2010s was home fitness, and you were big winners with your investment in Peloton. I’d love it if you could walk through how you made that investment?
What's the next big thing in consumer that you think is under-appreciated or contrarian?
What’s often misunderstood investing in consumer oriented companies?
If the bet is right when it comes to a trend, how important is having a competitive advantage in your product?
When you think about the major themes and changes in consumer behavior, what comes to mind?
Is investing in consumer products saturated since it's easier than ever to launch a company?
What do you think is misunderstood by tech when it comes to CPG?
What’s misunderstood when it comes to brand?
What’s under-appreciated when it comes to building a brand?
What’s one piece of advice you have for founders?
38 min
April 26, 2022Sumi Das (CapitalG) - How to invest in consumer tech in both U.S. and emerging markets, when does the growth stage start, and the advantages of having a single LP structure
My guest today is Sumi Das, who is a Partner at CapitalG. CapitalG is Alphabet’s independent growth fund. Some of their investments include Airbnb, Lyft, and Duolingo. We discuss CapitalG’s relationship to Google, Google Ventures, and the advantages of a single LP, Sumi spends alot of time not only thinking about consumer opportunities in North America,, but also in emerging markets so we focus on some of the differences building consumer technology and evaluating opportunities in different regions and what makes technology transferable to other markets and not transferable. Without further ado, here’s Sumi.
Here are some of the questions I ask Sumi:
What was your interest in technology?
How did you end up at CapitalG, and also, can you tell us a little about what CapitalG is and your relationship to Alphabet and Google?
The future is mobile - what’s the future today?
What’s your definition of growth-stage investing?
How big can this market be?
Can they scale to adjacent markets?
How do you think about the differences when investing and building companies in emerging markets vs. the U.S.?
What makes a piece of technology transferable into other markets?
What type of market do you have to start by building everything at the same time vs. focusing on one specific use case?
How does this translate into your theory of when it makes sense to bundle vs. unbundle?
How does scale look different?
When you’re investing in emerging markets, what consumer characteristics are you looking for or are appealing?
How do you think about engineering talent abroad and recruiting for your companies?
How do you think about valuations at the growth stage in this current market?
They say that growth stage happens when you have product-market fit. How do you analyze on a deeper level if a company does have product-market fit and the depth of that connection?
What’s one thing you would change about VC?l
What’s one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?
Professionally - Sam Walton biography
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received?
What’s one piece of advice you have for founders?
30 min
April 20, 2022Nuno Gonçalves Pedro (Chamaeleon) - What consumer technology will make its way to the west, do companies create new markets, what’s after the iPhone?
Thank you Ashish for introducing me to our guest today, Nuno Gonçalves Pedro, General Partner at Chameleon. Chameleon typically invests at the seed and series a level principally product led technology companies. Some of their portfolio includes Draftkings, Robinhood and Keepsafe. We discuss the evolution of eCommerce, if companies actually create new markets, and how he uses quant to make investment decisions. Without further ado, here’s Nuno.
Questions I ask Nuno:
What was your attraction to technology?
What led you into venture capital?
When you look at consumer investing and the evolution of ecommerce in Asia, what technologies do you think are going to make its way to the west?
How did Chamaeleon come together?
Why has your focus been consumer? What makes you excited as a consumer investor?
Where do you think some of the big opportunities are in consumer?
Walk me through your due diligence process -
How do you analyze teams?
How do you use quant to help make decisions?
What are the important insights and data points?
How do you think about the next consumer platform? There’s lots of buzz around the metaverse, web3. How do you think about what’s coming next after the iPhone?
What tends to be the reason why you pass on a consumer tech company?
What’s one thing you would change about venture capital?
What’s one book that inspired you professionally and one book that inspired you personally?
Professionally - Post Capital Society - Drucker
The How of Happiness - Sonia
Modern Physics Ancient Faith
What’s the best piece of advice that you’ve received?
What’s one piece of advice that you have for founders?
43 min
April 13, 2022Bilal Zuberi (Lux Capital) - Why investing in technological innovation is overlooked by most VCs, how to invest in at the intersection of deep tech x consumer
Our guest today is Bilal Zuberi, Partner at Lux Capital. Lux Capital Investing in people inventing the future. Some of their investments include Happiest Baby, Citizen, Carbon Health and Duck Duck Go. Bilal also founded GEO2 Technologies and comes from an extensive technical and science background. What we explore on today’s episode is how to invest at the intersection of deep tech and consumer.
Some of the questions I ask him:
One of your focuses is investing in Deep Tech. We haven’t covered Deep Tech yet on the podcast, what is deep tech?
Business model innovation vs technological innovation
Mission-oriented go to market chops
When you think about consumer deep tech companies, what do you think about? What are the use cases where consumers could benefit from deep tech?
Betting on teams that own the problem, not just the solution
How is investing in deep tech different to other types of categories when you think about return timeline?
How flexible are you with the length?
Even if you do have an incredible consumer tech product with a clear competitive advantage or compelling value prop, how do you analyze the marketing and branding?
Would you invest in a company that has compelling technology, but you don’t understand the branding or how it would work?
Can brand be a sustainable competitive advantage?
How do you analyze deep tech products? What’s your diligence process?
What’s tends to be the reason why you pass on a consumer-focused company?
Why did you join Lux and how do you describe Lux’s investment philosophy?
How are you thinking about today’s market when it comes to price?
What’s one thing you would change about venture capital?
What’s one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally? Professionally - High Growth Handbook
Personally - Engineering Marvels of the World
What’s the best piece of advice that you’ve received?
What’s one piece of advice you have for founders?
45 min

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Consumer VC takes a look into early-stage consumer investing and venture capital. If you are interested in learning about consumer trends, have a b2c business and interested in learning about the…