Consumer VC

My guest today is [Alexa von Tobel](https://twitter.com/alexavontobel), Founder of [Inspired Capital](https://inspiredcapital.com/) and [LearnVest](https://learnvest.com/). Inspired is a generalist fund based in New York City that backs early-stage founders with transformative ideas. Some of their companies include Chief, Geneva, Public and Snackpass. They recently closed their second fund of $281 million investing in seed and series A companies. She also founded LearnVest, which was an American financial planning company which she sold for $250 million. In this episode we discuss how New York's entrepreneurial and venture capital scene has risen in the past 15 years, her approach to investing as a generalist and staying price disciplined in this current market. Without further ado, here's Alexa.

Some of the questions I ask Alexa:

1. So what inspired you to start Inspired Capital?

2. How did the fund come together?

3. What was fund 1’s focus?

4. Unfair advantages?

5. Operational experience to be a great investor?

6. What were some of your biggest learnings through fund 1?

7. How do you approach investing at seed and Series A?

8. How has New York transformed as a startup and venture ecosystem in the past 15 years?

    1. What verticals in New York are you most excited about?

9. How is fund 2 going to be different from fund 1?

10. How do you think about price discipline in the current market?

11. Is founder-friendly in today’s landscape writing a larger check?

12. How do you approach partnering with founders?

13. Are you finding that founders aren’t always choosing the highest prices?

14. How do you stay price discipline in this current market?

15. What’s your sourcing strategy?

16. What parts of the creator economy excite you?

17. Has COVID changed your mind on any particular verticals?

18. What’s one thing you would change about venture capital?

19. What’s one piece of advice for founders?

Our guest today is [Andrew Gluck](https://twitter.com/irrvrntVC), GP at [irrvrntVC](https://angel.co/v/back/irrvrntvc). Irreverant is a rolling fund that focuses on investing in NextGen Commerce, DTC, & AdTech. Some of Andrew's investments include Haus, Caraway, Cadence, Italic, Poppy and Simple. Previously, Andrew founded and was the COO of the marketing agency Agency Within which generated over $5B for brands looking to maximize profitability. In this episode, we discuss the intersection of growth marketing and investing, how Andrew makes investment decisions based on his background in growth as well as how to choose a growth marketing agency. Without further ado, here's Andrew.

Some of the questions I ask Andrew:

1. What was your initial attraction to growth marketing?

2. What are some of the changes you've seen in the past 10 years when it comes to digital marketing and scaling companies?

3. Why did you eventually decide to start your own growth marketing agency?

4. When dealing with digitally native brands, what are some of the aspects within growth that sometimes clients might not understand?

    1. If a company has most of its sales on Amazon, does that worry you?

5. When does it make sense for a company to start paid marketing?

    1. What's the smallest ad budget you recommend that could give you some idea if it's working?

6. How long should a test be?

7. We've heard time and time again on this show it's the easiest point in time to build a company, the hardest period to build a brand. As an investor and marketer, what has to be compelling about a company in order for you to invest your time or money?

8. We've talked on this show about how choosing an agency can be a difficult thing to do. It's hard to understand 

9. How did [irrvnt.vc](http://irrvnt.vc) come together? Why did you decide to create a rolling fund opposed to a traditional venture capital fund?

10. Where does a subscription make sense?

    1. What are the advantages of a rolling fund?

11. What's one thing you would change about venture capital?

12. What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?

13. What's one piece of advice that you have for founders?

14. What's the best piece of advice that you've received?

My guest today is [Rex Woodbury](https://twitter.com/rex_woodbury?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor), who is a Principal at [Index Ventures](https://www.indexventures.com/). Index Ventures is one of the largest and prestigious VC funds inthe world, Some of the companies they've invested in Robinbood, Roblox, and Glossier. Rex focuses his time on thinking how people, culture and technology intersect. He has an amazing weekly newsletter called Digital Native where he shares what he's observing around these pillars, which I highly recommend. You'll learn in this episode about the metaverse - what it is and how the creator economy, crypto, NFTs, web 3.0 all tie into it as well as different use cases of how people are creating their own digital identities. Without further ado, here's Rex.

Some of the questions I ask Rex:

1. What was your attraction to technology and media?

2. How do you describe how technology has shaped culture?

3. What is the metaverse today and how do you see the metaverse evolving?

4. How do you describe Web 3.0?

5. What does community

6. With all this being said, how do you think about the modern community and online community in general?

7. What's the difference between creators and influencers?

8. Creator economy is a very hot sector to invest in. How do you analyze though what's investible and what isn't investible?

9. Which legacy platforms are doing a good job attracting creators and which platforms have work to do?

10. Metaverse 

11. What's some of the differences from the legacy social media companies vs. modern ones?

    1. Are we going to see platform gatekeepers in the future?

12. How do you think about the future of fame?

13. How are people interacting in the meta verse? Which parts of the metaverse do you find most interesting?

14. There's now so many products that are investible. What are products that you are most interested in becoming investible in the future?

15. In your piece on the digital renaissance, you mention "This gets to the heart of this new economy. It’s no longer designed for centralized platforms that monopolize value; it’s built for creators and communities." What does this new economy look like?

16. What will the metaverse look like in the next 5 years?

17. What's one part of the creator economy and the metaverse that most investors may not understand?

18. Are we going to see a billion dollar creator? Will creators ever get to be venture backable?

19. What's one thing you would change about venture capital?

20. What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?

21. What's one piece of advice you have for founders?

22. What's the best piece of advice that you've received?

Thank you Daniel Gulati for the introduction to my guest today [Allon Bloch](https://www.linkedin.com/in/allon-bloch-70b1223/), founder and CEO of [K Health](https://www.khealth.com/). K Health is where you can get personalize heath answers and fast. It's the closest doctor's office is in your pocket, Trusted by over 4 million patients. Allon is also a serial entrepreneur who founded not one but two companies that went public - Wix and Vroom. On this show, we ask what's his process to determine whether or not to start a company, how he thinks about markets, why he wanted to innovate within the health sector and much much more. Without further ado, here's Allon.

Questions I ask Allon:

1. What was your attraction to be an entrepreneur?

2. What compelled you to start Wix, Vroom and K Health?

3. What makes a market attractive for you to want to start a business?

4. Why health?

5. Walk us through how healthcare currently works?

6. Why has disruption been slow healthcare?

7. What is the biggest problem with healthcare in your mind?

8. Since you didn't come from a healthcare background, how do you approach building a company in an industry that you're new to?

9. What led to the founding of K Health?

10. What was the first problem you wanted to solve?

11. What were the effects of COVID when it came to innovation within healthcare?

12. What is telemedicine and how is K Health different?

13. How do you partner with Primary Care doctors and hospitals?

14. How does the use of AI help primary care doctors?

15. What’s next for K Health?

16. What was your approach to fundraising?

17. What are some of the important habits that you've developed?

18. What's one thing you would change about venture capital?

19. What’s one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?

20. What’s the best piece of advice that you’ve received?

My guest today is Ali Hamed, co-founder and Partner of CoVenture. CoVenture offers entrepreneurs multiple ways to finance their businesses. Ali is one of the more unique guests we've had on the show simply because CoVenture's model is quite unique as they can underwrite both equity and debt into technology startups. When Ali and I first got talking, he mentioned that he was consumer curious as opposed to a straight consumer investor. We'll unpack that on the show. We also talk about why Ali is so bullish on the Amazon rollups that have been happening, which social media companies are doing a great job appealing to creators and which aren't, and much much more..

Some of the questions I ask Ali:

My guest today is Paul Hsiao, co-founder and General Partner at Canvas Ventures. Canvas is one of the leading Series A firms having invested in Zola, Thrive Global and Roofstock. You'll learn what are the ingredients that could make for a spectacular marketplace businesses, what the series a currently looks like, and much much more. Without further ado, here's Paul.

And there you have it. It was a pleasure chatting with Paul. You can follow him @paul_hsiao on Twitter.

Some of the questions I ask Paul:

Our guest today is Sam Corcos, co-founder and CEO of Levels. Levels makes it easy for people to see how their diet is affecting both their health and their lifestyle in a quantifiable way by measuring biomarkers in real time. In previous episodes we've discussed tracking your sleep, your exercise. Levels is tracking your blood glucose so you can make better decisions about what you consume. This was a fascinating conversation about how to optimize what you eat and how wearables can help you understand your body better. Without further ado, here's Sam.

And there you have it. It was a pleasure having Sam on the show. Highly recommend following him on Twitter @SamCorcos.

Some of the questions I ask Sam.

1. What was your initial attraction to entrepreneurship? You started a few companies that were in different categories. CarDash (cardash.com) and what made you interested in the human body?
2. Why did you decide to focus on metabolic health and optimizing your health?
3. Why didn't you want to be on the technical side for Levels?
4. What was it like building a company with 5 co-founders? That might be the most amount of co-founders we've had on this show. What's that dynamic like?
5. Why are we in a metabolic health crisis?
6. Why did you decide to focus on continuous glucose monitoring? Is the change in glucose the best indicator to track what foods are best for you?
7. What are some of the biggest myths when it comes to what a healthy diet actually is?
8. It seems like theres conflicting information about nutrition makes them doubt their food choices. How does Levels help in this capacity?
9. How did Levels come together?
10. What's your approach to nutrition?
11. How did you go about building the product?
12. How did you seek customer validation?
13. What's the most expensive piece to you product?
14. When did you realize this is a consumer need?
15. What was it like going through YC?
16. What was your approach to fundraising?
17. What were some of your biggest learnings during COVID?
18. What were some of the most important habits that you've developed for productivity?
19. How did you think about pricing your product?
20. What's one thing you would change about venture capital?
21. What's one book that inspired you personally, one book that inspired you professionally?
22. What's the best piece of advice that you've received?

Our guest today is Ben Savage, Partner at Clocktower Technology Ventures. Ben and his fund focuses on investing in Fintech and financial services. As you could image, we're going to be talking about the consumer side to fintech. You'll also learn how his time working under Ray Dalio at Bridgewater shaped him as an investor, why digitally native financial services haven't taken off as fast as digitally native CPG brands, and opportunities in fractional ownership. Without further ado, here's Ben.

Some of the questions I ask Ben:

1. I'd love to first hear about your background since you've had a breadth of experiences as an investor. What was your attraction to finance and how did you get your start?
2. You worked at Bridgewater Associates. On this program we always ask each guest what's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally and Principles has come up time and time again. What was it like working there first hand and what did working with Ray and his team teach you? Transparency you deliver for feedback. Pick your battles
3. Receive honest feedback for founders?
4. How did Clocktower come together? Why the fintech focus?
5. Why has it taken so long for consumer financial services to be adopted D2C models? Is it harder to obtain consumer trust?
6. How are these consumer financial services able to build trust?
7. What is the reason why Alipay
8. How do you think about this era of new investable assets? What's not currently investable that you think could be become investable in the future?
9. What's the best new idea that you've heard - fractional ownership, technology is allowing us to trade into tradeable wealth.
10. They say that the future of consumer is fintech. What do you think investors don't understand about fintech?
11. How are you thinking about the current state of cryptocurrency?
12. At a macro lends what makes fintech in Latin America interesting and one of your focuses?
13. Why are the margins going up
14. How are you going to accelerate consumer adoption for banks?
15. We talk about how every consumer tech company becomes a fintech company. Do you think investors are truly prepared for this?
16. Are you also thinking about ways to make private markets more liquid?
17. What was your biggest learning due to COVID?
18. What's one thing you would change about venture capital?
19. What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?
20. What's one piece of advice that you have for founders?

My guest today is Katie Shea, Managing Partner of Divergent Capital. Katie has had alot of experience on both sides of the table as a founder, operator and angel investor and venture capital. Some of her investments include Cityrow, Parade and Topicals. We discuss why and how she launched a venture fund in the middle of the pandemic, how she approached angel investing, where the bar is for digitally native brands. Without further ado, here's Katie.

You can follow Katie on Twitter Here.

Some of the questions I ask Katie:

1. I think a great place to start is what was your initial attraction to consumer?
2. Why did you decide to start a fund during COVID?
3. You've been both a founder and early employee. What were some of your learnings in both of those roles?
4. You've worked in marketing with companies, as an employee and consultant. I remember in our first conversation, you spoke about being much more analytical with marketing (figuring out LTV/CAC and optimization) and less brand-marketing oriented. Since we don't have the arbitrage opportunities in growth like we did in the late 00s/early 10s, what are some creative strategies that you've seen in order to have higher LTV/CAC ratios and shorter paybacks?
5. How should a new consumer brand approach growth?
6. As an angel investor, what is your strategy when it comes to portfolio diversification?
7. You invest in both technology and brands. How do you think about portfolio construction?
8. Do you have any advice on folks that are thinking of becoming angels?
9. Divergent Venture Fund started during COVID
10. Walk me through your due diligence process?
11. What are current trends that you are focused on?
12. When should a consumer brand think about raising capital?
13. What's one thing that you would change as it relates to venture capital?
14. What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?
15. What's the best piece of advice that you've received?

My guest today is Henri Pierre-Jacques, Managing Partner at Harlem Capital. Harlem Capital is a venture capital firm on a mission to change the face of entrepreneurship by investing in 1,000 diverse founders over 20 years. Some of their investments include Aunt Flow, Blavity, and Repeat. We discuss how to think about impact and opportunity in the early stages of investing, Harlem's thesis and why Harlem wants to be a multi-stage investment firm.

And there you have it. It was a pleasure chatting with Henri. Highly recommend following him on Twitter @hpierrejacques

Here are some of the questions I ask Henri:

1. What made you want to transition from private equity to venture capital?
2. Why did you choose to start your own fund instead of joining a fund?
3. How did Harlem Capital come together?
4. What was your process when it came to raising your first fund?
5. What were some of the reasons why investors passed?
6. What is some of the biggest misconceptions when it comes to emerging managers?
7. How do you describe Harlem Capital's focus area?
8. What are some of the particular consumer trends that you are excited about?
9. Why do you think fund 1 and fund 2 outperform?
10. What is your fund model do you tend to be more concentrated or more spray and prey?
11. Do you consider yourself more of a thematic or opportunistic investor? Why?
12. The number of founders who happen to be women or people of color that are venture-backed is extremely low - to say the least. In your years working in venture capital do you see this starting to change on the ground level?
13. We talk about how to receive real change
14. I believe you recently moved to Miami. What has the venture scene been like? What are your impressions on the startup community?
15. What were your biggest learnings from COVID?
16. What's one thing you would change about venture capital?
17. What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?
18. What's one piece of advice for founders?
19. What's the best piece of advice that you've received?