Rachel is Senior Associate at Unusual helping to build and support the firm’s consumer investments. Rachel’s passion for business lies at the intersection of products and people. Rachel started her career as a consultant with McKinsey & Company with a focus on consumer brands, retailers, supply chain, and manufacturing. She then joined the Corporate Strategy team at Nordstrom Inc. Most recently, Rachel was an early-stage investor on the consumer team at Shasta Ventures. Rachel grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, a place that has given her a deep appreciation for the entrepreneurial journey. She was a part of the team that launched SparkTruck, a non-profit organization that brought design-thinking curriculum to students across the country via a mobile classroom. She has been a speaker at TED events, for the Aspen Institute, and at Autodesk University. Rachel holds a BS from Northwestern University where she studied Manufacturing Engineering and Psychology.

Episode transcription:

[00:00:13]Rachel Star: Hi there. I'm Rachel Star and I'm an early stage investor at Unusual Ventures.

[00:00:17] Jahn Karsybaev: [00:00:17] Rachel, thanks so much for finding time and joining us on the Ivy Podcast. I understand you're visiting Miami these days. Yes, I was how's the experience so far.

[00:00:29] Rachel Star: [00:00:29] It's been great. I have some family in the area, so it's been awesome to get to spend some time with them and heading back out to San Francisco.

[00:00:38] Jahn Karsybaev: [00:00:38] That's awesome. Yeah, we've been quite hot these days. Not only from the weather perspective, for both from the tech scene, that all of the stuff that goes on with our mayor, he's actually supposed to be coming on the show soon as well. So we're going to talk a lot about also the Miami tech week that just happened. So a lot of exciting things, kind of the media version of Silicon valley, I guess.

Rachel Star: Yeah, for sure.

Jahn Karsybaev: Before we talk about your current role and what you're currently working on, we'll spend a little bit of time getting to know you. Tell us a thumbnail version of your career timeline and what have you done prior to where you're currently working?

[00:01:15] Rachel Star: [00:01:15] Yeah, it's a great question. And I have bounced around quite a bit in my career. So I'll start with college. I went to Northwestern university. I studied manufacturing, engineering and psychology. So sort of an unconventional combination, but to me it was really about understanding products from various different lenses. So marrying the technical side of how you actually make and manufacture something with the psychological side of who is your user? How do you understand how people interact with objects on a day-to-day basis? I then did a quick stint at the Rhode Island school of design studying studio. So I wanted to get the artistic and creative lens in that whole product design world, took a detour and joined McKenzie and company based out of our Chicago office primarily focused on the retail sector. And then join Nordstrom Inc based out of Seattle on the corporate strategy team. So I took a number of different stops before joining my first role in VC, which was at Shasta Ventures. I was there on the early stage consumer team for a handful of years, and then just joined Unusual Ventures about a year.

[00:02:22] Jahn Karsybaev: [00:02:22] Well, super exciting. Thanks for that overview or what are diverse and interesting backgrounds you've got from different sectors, different industries. As far as your current role, tell us a little bit more about that. What falls under your purview? What are the interesting sides of your responsibilities? Happy to hear about that.

[00:02:40] Rachel Star: [00:02:40] Yeah. So either unusual, I sit on our consumer. Yeah. Which means I cover everything consumer-facing from, I do more social products, consumer finance in anything that you or I might use on a day to day basis. I