Consumer VC

Our guest today is Lindsay Kaplan, Co-founder of Chief. Chief is a private network focused on connecting and supporting women leaders. Previously, she was part of Casper’s founding team to lead communications and brand engagement. In thie episode you'll learn about the inner workings of professional networks, the opportunity she saw, why she decided to structure Chief as a for-profit scalable entity, and her approach to brand.

You can follow Lindsay on Twitter @lindsaykap

Some of the questions I ask Lindsay:

1. What was your attraction to working on startups vs. corporate?
2. Why marketing?
3. Before you became the first hire at Casper, you worked for a few companies that didn't make it. What were some of your learnings from those experiences?
4. What was it like being on a rocket ship at Casper?
5. What did that teach you about yourself and how to scale a company?
6. What was the insight that led you to found Chief?
7. Why did you decide to raise capital?
8. What were the main concerns from investors when you were raising your seed?
9. How were you able to pivot during COVID?
10. Did you find that members were frustrated they couldn't meet others in person or were excited that they could meet many more people since it's virtual?
11. Did you decide to expand into other markets more quickly since you had to transition online?
12. How did you approach growth?
13. What's one thing that you would change about fundraising?
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?
16. What's one piece of advice for founders?

Our guest today is Kate Shillo Beardsley, Partner at Hannah Grey. Hannah Grey is a first check venture fund investing in founders reimagining everyday experiences to improve work and life. In this chat we went down alot of fun rabbit holes like what we could all learn from Martha Stewart, what New York was like in the late 2000s/early 2010s as VC startups were coming into the picture, the creator economy, investing in secondary and tertiary markets. Without further ado here's Kate.

You can follow her on Twitter @Kshillo

Some of the questions I ask Kate:

1. What attracted you to consumer brands and media?
2. How did that influence you going to venture capital?
3. How did Lerer Hippeau come about? What were some of your focuses?
4. How did your operating experiences at Martha Stewart and Huffington Post help you as an investor?
5. What were some of your learnings from that experience
6. What was the New York startup scene like in the late 00s early 2010s?
7. What's changed most significantly from then to now?
8. Why did you decide to leave New York?
9. Pods of creativity
10. Creator to community
11. Community driven commerce
12. What about Colorado made you excited?
13. What led you to founding Galvanized Ventures?
14. You decide to start Hannah Grey right at the beginning of the pandemic. What was that like?
15. How has investing changed during the pandemic?
16. What are some of your focus areas or investment thesis? What's some of the differences investing in consumer vs. enterprise?
17. Walk me through your due diligence.
18. What's one thing that 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?
21. There's two people who gets you on the phone and talks right away
22. What's the best piece of advice for founders?

Thank you Mike Ghaffary for the introduction to our guest today, Mark Gainey, the founder of Strava. Strava is the #1 app for runners and bikers and is the destination to record any activity. In this conversation we talk about how Mark's passion for sports compelled him to Strava, what focus really means as a founder and Mark has some amazing examples of that, we also talk about scaling and his approach to building community. Without further ado here's Mark.

Some of the questions I ask Mark

1. The first company you founded was in the B2B space, which did really well Kana Communications. What made you want to build a B2C company? Finding motivation, staying inspired
2. Why did you decide to focus on cycling, since I remember when we first spoke you were a very competitive runner and you were very competitive in college at crew?
3. What was the insight that led you to found Strava?
4. What was the initial go to market strategy and how did you think about how the go-to market ties into the vision?
5. How did you acquire your first customers?
6. Athletes are normally aren't one sport athletes
7. How did you approach the balance of focus on a core problem/customer set vs. expanding to different use cases?
8. How did you approach growth?
9. Growing by partnerships
10. When did you decide to not just focus on biking but to also focus on measuring other activities?
11. What was the moment or several moments on your journey that helped made you stop and realize "ok, there's certainly something here", some type of validation?
12. How did you think about competition and who is a competitor vs. partner?
13. How did you approach your pricing strategy and what you to make free vs. premium?
14. What was your approach to community? Was that always the intent?
15. I know you were a huge athlete growing up and very competitive. How has that helped shape you as a leader and influenced your approach on how you've build Strava?
16. How do you make sure it's decentralized
17. What's next? What do you see is next for Strava?
18. What's the best piece of advice that you've received?
19. What's one piece of advice for entrepreneurs?

Our guest today is Matteo Franceschetti, founder and CEO of Eight Sleep, The #1 Smart Mattress, designed to help you fall asleep faster and stay asleep. In this episode, you'll learn about how Matteo thinks about sleep, why we should optimize it, habits that help us get to sleep and where eight sleep comes into play. We also talk about his vision about being more than a sleep company. Without further ado, here's Matteo.

Check out Eight Sleep and you can follow him on Twitter @m_franceschetti.

Some of the questions I ask Matteo

1. What got you interested in studying sleep?
2. What was the initial insight that led you to founding Eight Sleep?
3. How did you think about product discovery, where in sleep to focus your time?
4. What were parts of your product that you had to iterate on?
5. What's the ideal temperature people should be sleeping at?
6. What was your process to validate your idea?
7. Was it a single moment in time when you found there is consumer demand for this type of technology?
8. What was your fundraising strategy?
9. How did you think about your go to market strategy, focus and your company's vision?
10. What is your company's vision?
11. Hardware is very difficult to do. What were some of the learnings and lessons learned building a hardware company?
12. What was that process like, finding a manufacturer and building out the whole supply chain?
13. Break down the metrics you focus on regarding sleep.
14. Were there any surprises from your intuition that you found from the data?
15. didn't know you had a big wake up
16. What's the biggest part about sleep that is most misunderstood by consumers
17. What was the impact of COVID? Especially since people couldn't try out the product in one of your show rooms and it's quite a high price point.
18. How do you balance working a fast moving, high growth company but still making sure all your employees get the right amount of sleep per night since that is part of your mission for everyone to do?
19. Softbank just came in with a $100 million investment. I know it's a recent partnership, but what has that been like receiving that amount of capital injection in the company?
20. What's Eight Sleep's vision in the next 5-10 years?
21. What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?
22. What's the best piece of advice that you've received?
23. What's one piece of advice that you have for founders?

Thank you Mereces Bent to the intro to our guest today, Amir Nathoo. Amir Nathoo, is the founder of Outschool. Outschool is an education marketplace/platform that offers a variety of engaging, small-group classes online that gives kids the unique opportunity to explore their interests in-depth. They were also one of the fastest growing tech companies during COVID. It was great chatting with Amir as we explored topics that we haven't covered often on this show like the effects COVID had on traditional education and where Outschool has become a complimentary part of kids lives. We talk about impact, legacy and Amir's unique distribution model when he first founded the company.

You can follow Amir on Twitter @amirnathoo.

Some of the questions I ask Amir:

1. What was your attraction to technology, entrepreneurship
2. What was the opportunity that you saw in education?
3. What was the aha moment or series of instances that led you to founding Outschool?
4. I remember in our first call you spoke about how you learned a lot more in those experiences outside of school rather than in the classroom. what do you mean by that?
5. How did you plan to replicate those experiences with Outschool?
6. When you were thinking of starting this business, what were the big question marks or big problems that you knew you had to solve in order for Outschool to work?
7. Fundraising.
8. What was the moment you realized you needed to raised capital?
9. How did you go about raising? What type of partners were you looking for?
10. How has COVID hit your business? Did you go through a supply crunch?
11. Did you have to change any part of your strategy due to COVID?
12. What's your vision for the future of Outschool? What can we expect in the next 5-10 years?
13. What's one thing you would change about the fundraising process or venture capital
14. What's the best piece of advice that you've received?
15. What's one piece of advice to founders currently building?

Thank you Alison Ryu for the introduction to our guest today, Madeline Haydon. Madeline is Founder and CEO of nutpods. nut pods is a dairy-free half and half alternative made from almonds and MCT-rich coconuts in a convenient, easy to use coffee creamer. What I most appreciated from this conversation was how open Madeline was about the beginning days of nut pods, starting the company without any food and bev experience, taking on alot of risk and now leading the business to incredible heights.

Some of the questions I asked Madeline -

1. What attracted you to entrepreneurship? Especially Dairy Free creamers
2. What attracted you to the world of creamers and what was the insight that led you to founding Nutpods?
3. Walk me through the process of developing creamers in your kitchen to actually having commercial manufacturing?
4. How did you go about building your supply chain?
5. What was your approach to distribution early on?
6. Daily free vs. non-sweener
7. What was that moment like when you knew you were on to something / wanted to take this full time and put everything you had into Nutpods?
8. When and why did you choose to raise capital?
9. What was your approach to fundraising?
10. What were some of the challenges / biggest hurdles you had to overcome?
11. What are some of the differences fundraising from VCs vs. private equity groups?
12. When did that transition start for you?
13. What was your approach to board construction?
14. What would you like to see change in the fundraising process?
15. How did the pandemic change nut pods? Did you have to pivot your strategy, channel mix?
16. What has been your approach to new distribution channels, partnerships and product extensions?
17. When you take a look back at all of what you've accomplished with nut pods, what were some of the key reasons why you've been so successful?
18. What's your vision for nutpods in the coming years?
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 the best piece of advice that you've received?
22. What's one thing you would change about venture capital?

My guest today is Elizabeth Galbut, one of the founding partners of SoGal Ventures. SoGal Ventures is the is the first female-led, next generation venture capital firm. In this episode we discuss how Elizabeth's interests led to thinking about consumer innovation, how she started a fund, the biggest arbitrage opportunity of her lifetime, and managing a two person global fund. Without further ado, here's Elizabeth.

Some of the questions I ask Elizabeth:

1. You were originally in healthcare. What prompted you to make this transition to become a venture capitalist?
2. How did SoGal Ventures come about? What's your typical check size
3. I know Pocket is located in Asia, you're located in the United States and you are a two GP, how do you think about where to focus on investing since you are quite global and have a small team?
4. Walk me through your due diligence process
5. What categories do you spend the most time on? How do you analyze categories
6. What has to stand out when you talk to founders?
7. I know part of your focus is looking at products that serve the upcoming generation. What are you most surprised by Gen Z?
8. What's one thing you would change about venture capital?
9. What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?
10. What's the best piece of advice that you've received?
11. What's one piece of advice for founders?

My guest today is Ryan Gnesin, founder of Elevate Brands. Elevate Brands buys consumer-leading Amazon FBA brands and elevate them to their full potential. This is a little bit of a different episode as the focus is creating and scaling brands on Amazon and how you can leverage Amazon across other channels.

And there you have it, it was awesome having Ryan on Twitter at @ryangnesin

Here's some questions I ask Ryan:

1. Looking at your resume, you were in life insurance and commodities trading. What was your attraction to ecommerce and Amazon?
2. What was the insight that led you founding at the time Recom Brands and what was the opportunity did you see?
3. Walk me through your due diligence process when analyzing Amazon brands?
4. What are typically the multiples and how do they change from brands who are omnichannel?
5. How do you go about building a brand on Amazon?
6. What's your approach to portfolio construction and category?
7. Why was $55 million the right amount for your fund (congrats on fundraising!)?
8. What's your ideal (realistic) return when you acquire a brand?
9. Do the brands you acquire typically also have their own DTC channel?
10. Once you acquire the brand, is your value add consolidating the supply chain / cutting costs or is it revenue growth?
11. Do you ever have your brands go omnichannel?
12. Do you ever get nervous about copy cats? Either from Amazon or competitors?
13. How do you analyze different Amazon markets and think about market expansion?
14. What's the best piece of advice that you've received?
15. What's one piece of advice for founders?

My guest today is Dan Reich, who is a serial entrepreneur. Some of the companies he founded are Spinback, TULA and Troops.ai. TULA started as a digitally native health and beauty brand where Dan served as CEO from inception to over $1mm in sales in less than one year. Troops is a B2B technology company that is building a mobile-first, intelligent CRM. Since Dan has extensive backgrounds in both B2B and B2C, in this episode we focus on some of the differences when building a B2C company vs. B2B.

Here are some questions I ask Dan -

1. What was your attraction to entrepreneurship?
2. Why did you decide to launch a skincare brand? What was the insight?
3. How did you think about the competitive landscape within skincare?
4. When did you realize after launching this could be something real?
5. What was your approach to scaling online?
6. What was your initial omnichannel strategy?
7. How were you able to successfully fundraise?
8. What was the hardest part of TULA's business to get investors over the line?
9. Why did you decide to step down as CEO?
10. What compelled you to start a completely different business in Troops.ai?
11. What are some of the differences building an enterprise business vs. consumer business?
12. As an investor, what do you look for in an entrepreneur?
13. Are there specific categories you focus on or find attractive?
14. Walk me through your decision making process.
15. What's one thing you'd change with the fundraising / venture capital process?
16. What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?
17. What's the best piece of advice that you've received?
18. What's one piece of advice for founders currently building?

My guest today is Robin Li, Principal at GGV Capital. GGV is a global venture capital fund that invests in seed to growth stage companies. Some of their companies include Airbnb, Poshmark, Alibaba, and Peloton. We discuss how GGV makes decisions on a global scale, what opportunities in consumer internet Robin is most focused on, and bringing small businesses online.

You can follow Robin on Twitter @robin_p_li

Some of the questions I ask Robin -

1. What attracted you to venture capital and how did you wind up at GGV?
2. When it comes to evaluating early stage consumer companies, what are some of the elements you look for that are positive signs that there is traction and how do you evaluate companies when you have to make decisions very quickly?
3. Are there metrics that you focus on that might often be overlooked by founders?
4. What are some major turn offs or deal breakers from startups when they pitch their business to you?
5. In the due diligence process, how do you assess if the product is solving a real problem?
6. What are current trends that you are focused on?
7. What have been changes in consumer behavior during COVID that you are most surprised by?
8. What are some of the challenges when it comes to evaluating consumer startups?
9. How has consumer technology and ecommerce evolved differently in China vs. the United States?
10. I know that GGV invests in both the U.S. and China. In ecommerce, retail and social media China is far ahead of the United States with technology. What do you see as consumer technology that exists in China and that will crossover to the U.S.? What consumer technology won’t cross over?
11. What are some of the key differences between the Chinese consumer and the American consumer relating to internet behavior?
12. Communities - Chief - have over three thousand women, connecting Fishbone around professional communities
13. Round sizes have increased dramatically over the past few years with huge funds into venture capital. Now we have pre-seed, mico funds. How has this influenced you as an investor?
14. What are some consumer trends that you are excited about?
15. What is one company that you recently invested in or worked with that you are excited about?
16. What is one company that you should have invested in but didn’t?
17. What is one piece of advice that you have for founders of b2c companies that are looking to raise capital?