Consumer VC

Mike Mayer (Windmill) - Building the smart AC Unit that's eye candy for your window

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Our guest today is Mike Mayer, Co-CEO of Windmill. Windmill is the smart, quiet AC unit that looks nice. As you can imagine, we discuss the wonderful world of air conditioning. How he co-founded Windmill with his brother if he had any intention of getting into the air condition business, his approach to getting Windmill off the ground, fundraising, new revenue streams, and releasing new products.

Some of the questions I ask:

  1. Did you always want to be an entrepreneur and start a business with your brother?
  • Competing clothing brand called Peaches
  • What was the insight that led you to founding Windmill?
  • How did you build out your supply chain?
  • How do you approach industrial and brand design?
  • What are some of the regulations?
  • Talk about all your different revenue streams?
  • Why do seasonal business
  • How did you think about your sales channels? Why did you do retail out the gate, how did you get into retail as your first channel?
  • What was the process of convincing investors?
  • How have you grown since founding Windmill?
  • Changes in COVID
  • We saw with high AOV products the repeat purchase rate isn’t very high. How did you think about additional products you could sell or even being able to build a subscription business?
    1. How do you use software coupled with the physical product?
  • What’s one thing you would change about fundraising?
  • What’s one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?
    1. Unbroken
    • ...more
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    Consumer VCBy Mike Gelb
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