Consumer VC: Venture Capital I B2C Startups I Commerce | Early-Stage Investing

Welcome to The Consumer VC, a newsletter about venture capital and consumer startups delivered straight to your inbox. If you aren’t subscribed, come and subscribe below.

🎧 You can also listen to this episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other podcast players.

Today’s Consumer VC is brought to you by Gorgias.

Gorgias is the #1 helpdesk for Shopify, Magento and BigCommerce stores, and can turn your customer support into a profit center. Brands like OLIPOP, Death Wish Coffee and Steve Madden have reduced their response times and increased efficiencies by using Gorgias.

If you’re looking to increase your retention for your business, mention Consumer VC and get 2 months of Gorgias for free.

Hey There,

Thank you Brian Reilly for the introduction to Haley Rosen, Founder of Just Women's Sports. Just Women's Sports is the first media company solely focused on bringing Women Sports directly to you.

In this episode you will learn:

* Why Haley decided to start a sports media company during the pandemic

* The opportunity within women’s sports and the leagues that are primed for growth

* The relationship between athlete and journalist

* How she thinks about perfectionism

* The type of content she wants to be producing

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to The Consumer VC, a newsletter about venture capital and consumer startups delivered straight to your inbox. If you aren’t subscribed, come and subscribe below.

🎧 You can also listen to this episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other podcast players.

Today’s Consumer VC is brought to you by Gorgias.

Gorgias is the #1 helpdesk for Shopify, Magento and BigCommerce stores, and can turn your customer support into a profit center. Brands like OLIPOP, Death Wish Coffee and Steve Madden have reduced their response times and increased efficiencies by using Gorgias.

If you’re looking to increase your retention for your business, mention Consumer VC and get 2 months of Gorgias for free.

Hey There,

Today’s episode is with Jordan Nathan, founder and CEO of Caraway. Caraway crafts well-designed non-toxic ceramic cookware thoughtfully designed for any type of home. They are also one of the fastest growing digitally native brands during COVID.

On this episode we discuss:

* Why fundraising was very challenging in the beginning

* His approach to product design

* The type of influencers he chooses to partner with

* His approach to growth

* Market positioning and price point

Thank you Ben Zises for the introduction. I hope you all enjoy.

Welcome to The Consumer VC, a newsletter about venture capital and consumer startups delivered straight to your inbox. If you aren’t subscribed, come and subscribe below.

🎧 You can also listen to this episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other podcast players.

Today’s Consumer VC is brought to you by Gorgias.

Gorgias is the #1 helpdesk for Shopify, Magento and BigCommerce stores, and can turn your customer support into a profit center. Brands like OLIPOP, Death Wish Coffee and Steve Madden have reduced their response times and increased efficiencies by using Gorgias.

If you’re looking to increase your retention for your business, mention Consumer VC and get 2 months of Gorgias for free.

Hey There,

Our guest today on The Consumer VC podcast is Max Niederhofer, Partner at Heartcore Capital. Heartcore Capital is Europe's consumer tech VC focusing on investing in happiness at Seed and Series A.

Some of Max’s investments include Italic, LastFM, and One Fine Stay. Previously Max was an investor at Accel and founded MyBlog and Qwerly.

In this episode, we focus on:

* Investing in communities

* The future of social

* Differences when scaling a company in Europe vs. U.S.

* Three macro trends he thinks about often

* Why we should rethink referring to people as “consumers”

Thank you Marc Nathan for the introduction! Enjoy listening.

Welcome to The Consumer VC, a newsletter about venture capital and consumer startups delivered straight to your inbox. If you aren’t subscribed, come and subscribe below.

🎧 You can also listen to this episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other podcast players.

Today’s Consumer VC is brought to you by Gorgias.

Gorgias is the #1 helpdesk for Shopify, Magento and BigCommerce stores, and can turn your customer support into a profit center. Brands like OLIPOP, Death Wish Coffee and Steve Madden have reduced their response times and increased efficiencies by using Gorgias.

If you’re looking to increase your retention for your business, mention Consumer VC and get 2 months of Gorgias for free.

Hey There,

My guest today on The Consumer VC is Tige Savage, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Revolution Ventures.

Revolution a venture capital fund based in Washington, D.C. Revolution Ventures focuses on early-stage venture capital investments in technology-enabled businesses that disrupt existing, multi-billion dollar industries.

Some of their investments include Runkeeper, Homesnap, Framebridge, and LivingSocial.

This episode was extra special for me as Tige is the first investor I’ve had on the show who is based in Washington D.C., my hometown.

We discuss:

* How to invest in regulated industries

* Why Tige purposefully invests in companies outside of Silicon Valley

* The verticals different cities around the country are known for

* His biggest takeaways from COVID

* How he thinks about price and ownership

I hope you enjoy!

Welcome to The Consumer VC, a newsletter about venture capital and consumer startups delivered straight to your inbox. If you aren’t subscribed, come and subscribe below.

🎧 You can also listen to this episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other podcast players.

Today’s Consumer VC is brought to you by Gorgias.

Gorgias is the #1 helpdesk for Shopify, Magento and BigCommerce stores, and can turn your customer support into a profit center. Brands like OLIPOP, Death Wish Coffee and Steve Madden have reduced their response times and increased efficiencies by using Gorgias.

If you’re looking to increase your retention for your business, mention Consumer VC and get 2 months of Gorgias for free.

Hey Friends,

Our guest today is Ernesto Schmitt, Co-founder and Arch Crafter at The Craftory. The Craftory is a $375 million fund that solely invests in CPG brands. Some of their investments include Hippeas, TomboyX and Dyper.

Previously, Ernesto was a serial entrepreneur of several successful tech and media companies, having successful exits to Twitter, Snap and Intel.

We discuss:

* His approach to investing on a global scale

* Opportunities he sees in consumer at the Series A, B, C.

* Why digitally native brands are heading into retail too early

* The balancing act of profitability vs. scale

* The number of consumers who are willing to pay for better for you products

I hope you all enjoy! Thanks for listening and let me know what you think of the episode!

Welcome to The Consumer VC, a newsletter about venture capital and consumer startups delivered straight to your inbox. If you aren’t subscribed, come and subscribe below.

🎧 You can also listen to this episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other podcast players.

Today’s Consumer VC is brought to you by Gorgias.

Gorgias is the #1 helpdesk for Shopify, Magento and BigCommerce stores, and can turn your customer support into a profit center. Brands like OLIPOP, Death Wish Coffee and Steve Madden have reduced their response times and increased efficiencies by using Gorgias.

If you’re looking to increase your retention for your business, mention Consumer VC and get 2 months of Gorgias for free.

Hey There,

Thank you Anna Whiteman for the intro to our guest today, John Sherwin. He’s the founder and CEO of Hydrant. Hydrant hydrates you faster and more efficiently than water alone.

In this episode you'll learn about a part of health and wellness that has been overlooked: hydration. We also discuss:

* John’s origin story of how he discovered hydration was a personal problem for him

* Why hydration is still underserved

* Feedback loops he developed from Facebook ads

* His approach to build a digitally native brand

* His retail strategy and expanding into Walmart and Whole Foods

Welcome to The Consumer VC, a newsletter about venture capital and consumer startups delivered straight to your inbox. If you aren’t subscribed, come and subscribe below.

🎧 You can also listen to this episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast players.

Today’s Consumer VC is brought to you by Gorgias.

Gorgias is the #1 helpdesk for Shopify, Magento and BigCommerce stores, and can turn your customer support into a profit center. Brands like OLIPOP, Death Wish Coffee and Steve Madden have reduced their response times and increased efficiencies by using Gorgias.

If you’re looking to increase your retention for your business, mention Consumer VC and get 2 months of Gorgias for free.

Hey There,

Our guest today on The Consumer VC podcast is Heather Hartnett, CEO and Founding Partner of Human Ventures. Human Ventures is an early-stage venture studio and venture fund in NYC that backs and builds consumer technology companies. Some of their portfolio companies include Tiny Organics, Toucan, and On Deck.

I enjoyed learning how Heather collaborates with founders at the earliest stages with their Humans in the Wild program and how they were able to shift the program online during COVID. We also discussed trends in consumer she is most excited about and different verticals within human needs.

Please enjoy.

Welcome to The Consumer VC, a newsletter about venture capital and consumer startups delivered straight to your inbox. If you aren’t subscribed, come and subscribe below.

🎧 You can also listen to this episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other podcast players.

Today’s Consumer VC is brought to you by Gorgias.

Gorgias is the #1 helpdesk for Shopify, Magento and BigCommerce stores, and can turn your customer support into a profit center. Brands like OLIPOP, Death Wish Coffee and Steve Madden have reduced their response times and increased efficiencies by using Gorgias.

If you’re looking to increase your retention for your business, mention Consumer VC and get 2 months of Gorgias for free.

Hey There,

My guest today is Megan Bent, Managing Partner at Harbinger Ventures.

Harbinger Ventures is a leading growth-equity investment firm focused on identifying and scaling high-growth companies in the consumer sector. They are the only fund I know of where each portfolio company actually has a stake in the fund.

We cover a lot of ground on this episode:

* Do consumers consider beef a healthy protein choice

* Managing scale vs. SKUs

* The benefits of having a concentrated portfolio approach

* Identifying emerging consumer categories

* Differences between brand efficiency vs. operation efficiency

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to The Consumer VC, a newsletter about venture capital and consumer startups delivered straight to your inbox. If you aren’t subscribed, come and subscribe below.

🎧 You can also listen to this episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other podcast players.

Today’s Consumer VC is brought to you by Gorgias.

Gorgias is the #1 helpdesk for Shopify, Magento and BigCommerce stores, and can turn your customer support into a profit center. Brands like OLIPOP, Death Wish Coffee and Steve Madden have reduced their response times and increased efficiencies by using Gorgias.

If you’re looking to increase your retention for your business, mention Consumer VC and get 2 months of Gorgias for free.

Hey There,

Our guest today on The Consumer VC is Tyler Mincey, who is a Partner at Bolt VC.

Bolt invests at the intersection of the digital and physical world.

Tyler started his career as an engineer on the iPod team at Apple, focusing on the shuffle, classic, nano and touch. Ah, the nostalgia.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

* His approach to hardware innovation as an operator

* How he analyzes hardware and tech-enabled businesses

* How he thinks about product design vs. sustainability

Thanks again for listening.

Hey There,

Our guest today on The Consumer VC podcast is Rachel ten Brink, who is an investor, Founder, CMO, and Board member. She was one of the founders and the CMO of Scentbird, which is a beauty subscription services that let's you choose from over 700 top rated perfumes each month.

In this episode you’ll learn

* How working in big CPG helped shape her as a founder

* Scaling a subscription perfume company

* Her approach to investing in beauty and personal care companies

* What it’s like being part of Y Combinator

* Growing your brand online

You can listen on Apple podcasts Here, Spotify Here, and other podcast players.