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

Hey There!

Our guest today on the podcast is Matteo Franceschetti, founder and CEO of Eight Sleep.

Eight Sleep is the #1 Smart Mattress, designed to help you fall asleep faster and stay asleep. One of my favorite bits was learning about Matteo’s vision of the company, beyond sleep as well as how he overcame early supply chain issues.

You can listen on Apple Podcasts Here, Spotify Here, and other podcast distribution channels.

Some of the topics we touch on:

* His process for validating ideas

* His approach to product discovery

* The most important metrics for sleep

* His approach to building the supply chain

* How he evaluated consumer demand.

* His fundraising strategy and the most recent investment from Softbank.

* The impact of COVID

As always, thanks for tuning in!

Hey Friends,

Today’s episode of The Consumer VC is with Amir Nathoo, the founder of Outschool.

Outschool is an education 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.

In this discussion, we chat about Amir’s origin story and how he was able to sense an opportunity to create a complimentary platform to traditional education.

Here are some of the questions focused on -

* What was his GTM strategy - what types of families and children did he initially target?

* What was the opportunity he saw in education?

* What was the aha moment or series of instances that led him to founding Outschool?

* Did he have to change any part of the strategy due to COVID?

* Did he go through a supply crunch during COVID?

Thank you Mercedes Bent for the introduction to Amir! I hope you all enjoy.

You can listen on Apple Podcast Here, Spotify Here and other distribution channels.

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 nutpods. She started the company with no prior CPG experience. She also took on a lot of risk and faced many hurdles. Despite these challenges, she was able to navigate nutpods to incredible heights.

Some of the questions I asked Madeline -

* What attracted you to the world of creamers and what was the insight that led you to founding nutpods?

* Walk me through the process of developing creamers in your kitchen to actually having commercial manufacturing

* How did you go about building your supply chain?

* What was your approach to distribution early on?

* When and why did you choose to raise capital?

* What was your approach to fundraising?

* What were some of the challenges / biggest hurdles you had to overcome?

* What are some of the differences fundraising from VCs vs. private equity groups?

* How did the pandemic change nutpods? Did you have to pivot your strategy, channel mix?

* What has been your approach to new distribution channels, partnerships and product extensions?

* When you take a look back at all of what you've accomplished with nut pods, what are some of the key reasons why you've been so successful?

You can also listen on Apple Podcasts Here, Spotify Here, and other podcast distribution channels.

Hey there,

My guest today on podcast is Elizabeth Galbut, one of the founding partners of SoGal Ventures. SoGal Ventures is the first female-led, next generation venture capital firm. Some of their investments include Function of Beauty, Everlywell, Lovevery, and Eterneva.

I particularly enjoyed our discussion about arbitrage opportunities and how she analyzes different geographic markets - Elizabeth lives in the United States while her investment partner, Pocket, lives in Asia.

Some of the topics we discuss:

* How she transitioned her career from healthcare to venture capitalist

* How she fundraised for SoGal Fund 1

* How she makes investment decisions and invests in companies that are located in different parts of the world

* What she is most surprised by the Gen Z generation

* How she conducts diligence at the early stages

You can listen on Apple Podcasts Here, Spotify Here and other podcast distribution platforms.

My guest today is Ryan Gnesin, founder of Elevate Brands. Elevate Brands buys consumer-leading Amazon FBA brands and elevates them to their full potential.

This is a little bit of a different episode as the focus is scaling brands on Amazon and how you can leverage Amazon across other channels.

Here's some questions I ask Ryan:

* What's your approach to portfolio construction and category?

* Why was $55 million the right amount for your fund?

* What's your ideal (realistic) return when you acquire a brand?

* How do you analyze an Amazon brand?

* What’s the strategy after you purchase?

* Do you look at companies that also sell on different channels?

* What are typically the multiples for Amazon businesses?

* Do the brands you acquire typically also have their own DTC channel?

* When you buy a brand, do you ever get nervous about copy cats? Either from Amazon or competitors?

You can also listen on Apple Podcasts Here, Spotify Here and other podcast distribution channels.

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.

Hey there!

My guest today is Dan Reich, who is a serial entrepreneur. Some of the companies he founded are 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.

On this episode, we focus on some of the differences building a high growth CPG businesses and software businesses. What I most enjoyed was hearing some of his growth techniques in the early 2010s.

Other areas we dive in on -

* What was your digital growth strategy with TULA?

* How did you expand into multichannel?

* Why did you decide to step down as CEO?

* What compelled you to start a completely different business in Troops.ai?

* What are some of the differences building an enterprise business vs. consumer business?

You can listen to this episode on Apple podcasts Here, Spotify Here and other podcast distributers.

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.

Hey There!

My guest today on The Consumer VC is Robin Li, Principal at GGV Capital. GGV Capital is a global venture capital fund that invests in companies from seed to growth stage. Some of their investments include Alibaba, Poshmark, Airbnb, and Peloton.

This is a special episode for me. Robin was one of two investors who inspired me to start this podcast (after hearing her on another podcast)!

Robin’s breadth of knowledge about consumer internet from a global perspective is amazing. Some of the topics we discuss in this episode are:

* What consumer technology that exists in China will translate to the United States?

* What are the effects of being a mobile first nation?

* What are some changes in consumer behavior that she is most fascinated by?

* Where is the opportunity in the creator economy?

* Creative ways companies are building community

* What are some examples of companies that are bringing small businesses online?

For anyone who wants to learn about building a brand community, highly recommend you check out Robin’s book recommendation Monster Loyalty: How Lady Gaga Turns Followers into Fanatics by Jackie Huba. I read it a few weeks ago and believe anyone building or investing in consumer would find it helpful.

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did. This was long overdue and I’m thrilled that Robin and I were able to sit down and chat.

You can also listen on Apple Podcasts Here, Spotify Here, and other podcast distribution apps.

Hello! Thank you Rick Desai for introducing me to today's guests on the podcast, Callie Christensen and Kelly Oriard, founders of Slumberkins.

Slumberkins is a leading children’s educational brand on a mission to promote early emotional learning through a combination of creatures and story telling.

In this episode we learn how they accidentally stumbled upon entrepreneurship, how they fundraised without a lead investor (super creative), and how to grow a business organically.

If you believe authentic story telling drives consumer brands, you’ll enjoy this episode.

If you’re looking for inspiration, want to start your own business, and don’t come from a business background, you’ll enjoy this episode.

Additionally, we talk about:

* What were the early signals that Slumberkins be a real business?

* Why did you feel the need the raise capital?

* What was the biggest learning from Shark Tank?

* What's your approach to finding an investment partner?

* How do you think about scale and what's your vision for the brand?

You can also listen her on Apple Podcasts Here, Spotify Here, and most of the other podcast distribution platforms.

Enjoy!

Hello! On today’s episode I had the great honor of speaking with Andrew Dudum, founder of hims & hers.

hims & hers is a telehealth company that offers personal care products, subscriptions, and over the counter drugs. The company is focused on increasing accessibility to healthcare by lowering the cost and making appointments more convenient.

This episode was quite unique for the podcast as this is the first episode where we discuss the future of healthcare. Some of the topics we cover:

* Why the current healthcare system is broken

* How he was able to quickly execute his bold strategy

* Why he needed to fundraise every 90 days

* How humans are alot more alike than different

* How he thought about expanding into new categories

* Managing go-to-market strategy with vision

* Why he decided to go public via SPAC instead of a traditional IPO

You can also listen on Apple Podcasts Here, Spotify Here, and other podcast distribution channels.

On today’s episode I’m joined by Eric Doty, founder/CEO of Loupe. Loupe is building the world’s largest community of sports card collectors.

I didn’t know much about the sports card collecting market before my conversation with Eric. As a new category for both me and the podcast, I learned a lot and think you will as well.

We discuss:

* What got Eric back into collecting sports cards

* The insight that led him to founding Loupe

* How he solved the cold start problem many marketplace businesses had

* What metric he optimizes for in a transaction buyer/seller business

* His approach to leadership and what it means to be product driven

You can listen on Apple Podcasts Here, Spotify Here, and Google Podcasts Here.

Enjoy and let me know what you think of the episode!