The HotStart VC Podcast

Brian Folmer is the founder of First Look Ventures, a private investor group that has backed celebrity and creator-founded companies including Homecourt by Courtney Cox, MOSH by Patrick Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver, The Absorption Company by Ian Somerhalder and Nikki Reed, and Final Boss Sour by London Lazerson.

Brian never intended to become a venture investor. After dropping out of law school to start his first company, which ultimately failed, he spent years working in corporate retail and consumer brand accelerators before landing on an insight that changed everything. Investors were making decisions about consumer brands from pitch decks and data rooms alone, never actually experiencing the product. So he built First Look, a monthly subscription box that sends samples from six curated early stage brands directly to a network of 300 angel investors, VCs, and family offices who try them at home, review the data rooms, and decide who they want to meet. That box became the feeder system for First Look Ventures, his SPV and LP syndicate that writes $400,000 to $600,000 checks into Series A and Series B consumer brands.

Brian is sufficiently skeptical of celebrity brands. He breaks down the four-part checklist he uses when a celebrity is involved, why he Googles the crap out of every celebrity to understand where they are in their lifecycle, and why there are so many sharks between celebrities and the people who actually know the consumer brand world, pitching easy money and bad deals.

He explains:

• Why celebrities today are bigger than they were in the 80s because there are so many more touchpoints for consumers to see what they are doing
• The four-part checklist he uses to diligence celebrity partnerships including who else is investing and whether the brand aligns with what they have been talking about for years
• Why Kyle Kuzma and Jake Paul investing in deep tech is the right move because they are leaning into sourcing and securing advantages traditional VCs cannot replicate
• Why raising a huge round right out of the gates sets a very high bar for the next round and why founders better be ready to blow it out of the water
• Why so many celebrities launch white label tequila and beauty brands because sharks pitch them easy money
• His number one advice for investors backing celebrity brands: take it slow and be conscious of the math because the risk and ROI might not be as great as you originally thought

Chapters:

• 00:00:00 Introduction: Brian Fulmer and First Look Ventures
• 00:01:11 The Venture Origin Story: From Law School to Startup Accelerator
• 00:02:19 What is First Look: The Box Model and Private Investor Group
• 00:04:03 The Product Experience First Philosophy: Why Boxes Beat Pitch Decks
• 00:04:44 Celebrity Brand Investment Thesis: What Makes Them Interesting
• 00:07:14 Due Diligence on Celebrity Brands: The Checklist Approach
• 00:09:05 Alignment and Authenticity: When Celebrity Product Market Fit Fails
• 00:09:41 The Entrepreneurial Celebrity: Beyond Fame to Founder Mindset
• 00:11:09 The New VC Landscape: Athletes and Creators as Investors
• 00:13:08 Common Reasons for Passing: When Celebrity Brands Don't Make the Cut
• 00:14:06 Matchmaking and Connections: Leveraging the First Look Network
• 00:16:34 The Fundraising Dynamics: Large Rounds and High Valuations
• 00:18:39 Retail Strategy: When Celebrity Brands Go Nationwide on Day One
• 00:20:20 The White Label Problem: Why Celebrities Launch in Saturated Categories
• 00:23:03 The Shark Problem: Bad Actors Between Celebrities and Real Operators
• 00:25:03 Building vs. Being Famous: The Entrepreneur Skills Gap
• 00:25:24 What's Next for First Look: Dedicated Fund and Community Growth
• 00:27:00 Final Advice: Take It Slow and Be Conscious of the Math

HotStart VC

Subscribe to The Fame Game newsletter: https://hotstart.beehiiv.com/

Become a HotStart Angel and co-invest with us in celebrity-founded brands starting from $5,000: https://www.hotstart.vc/hotstart-angels/

Check out our fund: https://www.hotstart.vc/

Scott van den Berg

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-van-den-berg-22b534150/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottvandenberg_/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@scottvandenberg_

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@scottvandenbergvc

Brian Fulmer

First Look Ventures: https://www.firstlook.vc/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianfulmer/

HotStart VC is a fund that exclusively invests in brands founded by celebrities and creators. We're the go-to platform for celebrities and creators launching brands, providing capital, strategic support, and the infrastructure to scale.

Fabian and Julius Cowdrey are twin brothers, creator entrepreneurs with a combined following of over 450,000, and the co-founders of Joyna, an AI platform that matches users to the best events and experiences in their city in under 60 seconds based on deeply personalized recommendations.

It started with a group coaching company. Four years ago, Fabian and Julius were running small groups for people who couldn't afford one-to-one therapy or coaching, scaling to 10 groups of 10 and serving 100 people a month. But they hit a wall. People kept asking for more groups and they were exhausted. So they built infrastructure to scale their support, first through a wellness creator platform, then through Joyna, an AI that learns about you and connects you to like-minded people through shared real-life experiences.

What makes Joyna different from every other event platform is that it lives entirely on WhatsApp. Instead of forcing users to download yet another app, you simply text Joyna what you're looking for, it asks a few clarifying questions, and within 60 seconds it sends three personalized recommendations based on where you live, what you like, and what you've done before. It builds short-term and long-term memory so it gets better the more you use it.

The timing couldn't be better. Loneliness is up 35 to 40 percent year over year. Companies like Time Left, which connects strangers for dinner, are now operating in over 200 cities in just two and a half years. People are desperate for connection. Joyna makes it effortless to find things to do and people to meet, whether you are new to a city, looking for a date spot, or just bored on a Tuesday night.

Fabian and Julius break down why they chose to build a tech company instead of launching a CPG brand, how Julius gained 19 waitlist signups in one hour by going live on TikTok, and why being a good human with a solid network matters more than having a massive following when building a company.

They explain:

• Why Julius started creating content around music and reality TV before pivoting to viral street interviews
• How Fabian built his following from 39,000 to nearly 240,000 in three months by posting four times a day
• Why they built Joyna on WhatsApp instead of forcing users to download another app
• How Joyna uses conversational AI to learn about you and match you to events that suit your interests, location, and preferences
• Why loneliness is up 35 to 40 percent year over year and how Joyna is making it effortless to fix that
• Their number one advice for creators: post for the person who needs to find you, not for your existing followers

Chapters:

• 00:00:00 Introduction: From Content Creators to Building Joiner
• 00:00:53 The Content Creation Origin: From Music Covers to Reality TV
• 00:01:54 Building a Following: From Professional Cricket to 200K Followers in 3 Months
• 00:03:47 The Creator Advantage: Leveraging Personal Brand as an Unfair Advantage
• 00:05:43 What is Joyna: WhatsApp AI That Matches You to Events in Seconds
• 00:08:45 The Loneliness Crisis: Why People Are Desperate for Real Connection
• 00:12:29 How Joynar Works: Personalized AI Matching with Short and Long-Term Memory
• 00:14:44 The Marketplace Model: Affiliate Partnerships and Independent Hosts
• 00:15:55 Balancing Founder and Creator: The Time Management Challenge
• 00:20:34 The Celebrity and Creator Brand Trend: Why Tech Over CPG
• 00:24:18 Mission-Driven vs Money-Driven: Building Beyond the Exit
• 00:26:48 What's Next for Joyna: Building the Playbook Before Scaling
• 00:28:17 Advice for Creator Founders: Focus on Your Niche and Be Kind

HotStart VC

Subscribe to The Fame Game newsletter: https://hotstart.beehiiv.com/

Become a HotStart Angel and co-invest with us in celebrity-founded brands starting from $5,000: https://www.hotstart.vc/hotstart-angels/

Check out our fund: https://www.hotstart.vc/

Scott van den Berg

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-van-den-berg-22b534150/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottvandenberg_/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@scottvandenberg_

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@scottvandenbergvc

Fabian and Julius Cowdrey

Joyna: https://joyna.ai/

Julius Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jlcowdrey/

Fabian Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coachcowdrey/

HotStart is the go-to platform for celebrities and creators launching brands, providing capital, strategic support, and the infrastructure to scale.

Kameron Buckner is a creator entrepreneur, practicing attorney, and the founder of Social Docket, an AI-powered legal platform built specifically for the creator economy that reviews contracts in minutes, flags missing protections, and helps creators negotiate better deals without needing to hire a lawyer.

It started with friends asking for help. Kameron was in law school reviewing her own brand deals as a creator when her friends noticed and started asking her to do the same for theirs. And she kept seeing the same thing. Creators were signing contracts they did not understand, giving away rights they did not know they had, and losing money they should have earned. Some were so excited about getting recognized that they forgot to check if the deal could actually pay their rent.

That pattern became the foundation for Social Docket. One creator used the platform to get an extra five figures on a single deal just by copying and pasting the language Social Docket drafted for her. The brand initially said no when she tried to negotiate on her own. They said yes when she used the right legal language connected to the right term in the contract.

What makes Kameron different from anyone else building in legal tech is that she has been on both sides of the table. She has been creating content since 2014, long before it was cool, starting with a YouTube channel in her college dorm filming beauty and lifestyle content on an iPhone. By the time she graduated law school and started practicing employment law in 2019, she had already spent five years as a creator signing her own brand deals.

Kameron breaks down why she quit her law firm job after just one year to build The Legal Tea, her contract consulting firm, how a client told her she wanted an app instead of monthly calls and sparked the idea for Social Docket, and why nano and micro creators with 1,000 to 100,000 followers are the ones getting the most frequent contracts and need the most help.

She explains:

• Why she started creating content in 2014 and how her first YouTube check for $100 felt like winning groceries for the month
• Why the most common mistake creators make is not reading contracts because they are intimidated and do not know what to look for
• How Social Docket reviews contracts in minutes and drafts revisions that would normally take lawyers hours or days
• Why one creator got an extra five figures on a deal just by using the exact language Social Docket told her to say
• Why nano and micro creators get the most frequent contracts and need the most protection
• Her number one advice for creators launching companies: remember you are the CEO and you own a business, so act like it

Chapters:

• 00:00:00 Introduction: From Law School Creator to Building Social Docket
• 00:01:04 The Content Creation Origin: Starting in 2014 Before It Was Cool
• 00:02:02 Law School While Building: The Unique Advantage of Dual Experience
• 00:03:31 Content Evolution: From Beauty Tutorials to Law School Vlogs
• 00:04:40 Practicing Law as a Creator: Navigating the Corporate World
• 00:06:52 The Legal Tea: Quitting Big Law to Consult for Creators
• 00:09:45 The 2020 Inflection Point: When Everyone Became a Creator
• 00:11:19 Legal Horror Stories: The Most Common Creator Contract Mistakes
• 00:12:37 What is Social Docket: AI-Powered Legal Operating System
• 00:14:29 How Social Docket Works: From Upload to Negotiation in Minutes
• 00:16:30 Training the AI: Using Years of Contract Experience and Custom Prompts
• 00:18:38 The Ideal Creator Profile: Nano and Micro Creators Getting the Most Deals
• 00:19:44 Leveraging Creator Advantage: Community Building and Free Market Research
• 00:21:43 Beyond Free Marketing: The Hidden Advantages of Creator Founders
• 00:23:09 The Second Wave: Creators Building Tech Companies Over CPG Brands
• 00:24:11 Infrastructure Over Production: Why the Industry Needs Backend Tools
• 00:25:47 Balancing Creator and Founder: When Two Worlds Merge Perfectly
• 00:28:48 Founder Inspiration: Learning from Natalie and Rella
• 00:30:04 What's Next: Partnerships, Q4 Super Bowl, and Expanding the Ecosystem
• 00:31:55 Final Advice: Remember You Are the CEO of Your Creator Business

HotStart

Subscribe to the HotStart newsletter: https://hotstart.beehiiv.com/

Become a HotStart Angel and co-invest with us in celebrity-founded brands starting from $5,000: https://www.hotstart.vc/hotstart-angels/

Check out our fund: https://www.hotstart.vc/

Scott van den Berg

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-van-den-berg-22b534150/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottvandenberg_/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@scottvandenberg_

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@scottvandenbergvc

Kameron Buckner

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kameronmonet/?hl=en

Social Docket: https://www.socialdocket.ai/

Giselle Orentas is a creator entrepreneur with hundreds of thousands of followers and the founder of Balangy, a premium body care brand built around one belief: women should not have to choose between medicalizing their hormonal health or quietly suffering through it.

For over 20 years, Giselle had hormonal migraines every single month right before her period. The kind that forced her to turn off the lights, put ice on her head, and call her ex to pick up the kids. She tried everything and nothing worked until she discovered wild yam. Within weeks of applying it to her skin, her mood swings started to disappear. Within three months, so did her migraines. That personal discovery became Balangy, a body oil designed to help women trust their bodies through every phase of transformation, whether it is PMS, perimenopause, or menopause.

Giselle has been creating content since 2013, long before it was cool. She started sharing her raw vegan journey on Instagram while working at a construction company and over the years built a loyal community by posting wellness tips, superfood recommendations, and eventually her own personal transformation story. That audience became the foundation for Balangy, driving sales entirely through organic content before she ever spent a dollar on ads.

Unlike most creator brands that rush to market with white-labeled products, Giselle spent two years searching for a manufacturing partner who could honor her commitment to fully organic ingredients. Most labs said no. She kept looking until she found one that shared her standards.

She breaks down why she chose a body oil over a cream and how topical application works better for hormonal balance, how her favorite OBGYN became an advisor and now recommends Balangy to her patients, and why she turned down acquisition offers because she wanted to learn every aspect of building the company herself.

She explains:

• How wild yam ended 20 years of hormonal migraines and why she knew she had to share it with other women
• Why topical application works better than ingestible supplements for hormonal balance
• Why she spent two years searching for a lab that could honor her organic ingredient standards
• How she is launching an overnight deodorant that cleans your underarms while you sleep so you do not need to wear deodorant during the day
• How Dr. Jella, her OBGYN advisor, now recommends Balangy to her patients including those already on HRT
• Her number one advice for creators launching companies: trust yourself because your story and experience are all you need

Chapters:

• 00:00:00 Introduction: From 20 Years of Hormonal Migraines to Building Balangy
• 00:00:48 The Content Creation Origin: Starting in 2013 Before It Was Cool
• 00:05:42 The Face Reveal Moment: Overcoming Insecurity and Unhealthy Relationships
• 00:07:19 Building an Audience of Hundreds of Thousands: The Entrepreneurial Calling
• 00:10:00 The Wild Yam Discovery: When One Ingredient Changed Everything
• 00:10:19 What is Balangy Premium Body Care for Hormonal Wellness
• 00:15:47 Product Expansion: The Revolutionary Overnight Deodorant
• 00:17:47 Leveraging Creator Advantage: From Content to Company
• 00:21:38 The Celebrity Brand Trend: Doing It the Right Way vs Taking Shortcuts
• 00:27:37 What's Next for Balangy: Advisors, Ads, and Retail Expansion
• 00:30:16 Advice for Creator Entrepreneurs: Trust Yourself and Your Story

HotStart VC

Subscribe to the HotStart VC newsletter: https://hotstart.beehiiv.com/

Become a HotStart Angel and co-invest with us in celebrity-founded brands starting from $5,000: https://www.hotstart.vc/hotstart-angels/

Check out our fund: https://www.hotstart.vc/

Scott van den Berg

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-van-den-berg-22b534150/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottvandenberg_/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@scottvandenberg_

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@scottvandenbergvc

Giselle Orentas

Balangy: https://balangy.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/giselle.orentas/?hl=en

HotStart VC is a fund that exclusively invests in brands founded by celebrities and creators. We're the go-to platform for celebrities and creators launching brands, providing capital, strategic support, and the infrastructure to scale.

Ford Coleman is a creator entrepreneur with over 400,000 followers teaching career advice and hiring strategies to college students and young professionals, and the founder of Runway, a platform that helps college students land their first internship or job by connecting them to open roles hours or even days before they appear on LinkedIn or Indeed.

It started with an agency. Ford spent three and a half years running a placement business that generated half a million dollars in annual revenue while building his personal brand on the side. But as his following grew, he started receiving hundreds of DMs every single day from college students asking the exact same question: how do I get a job? And every single one of them was doing the exact same thing that wasn't working. Mass applying to thousands of jobs and hearing nothing back.

That's when Ford realized the job search isn't a numbers game. It's a timing game. The candidates who apply within the first 24 hours of a job posting are the ones who get interviews, not the ones who apply after the role has been blasted across LinkedIn and flooded with applicants. So he built Runway, a platform that integrates with over 200,000 company career sites and surfaces roles the moment they're posted. Runway users get interviews at six and a half times the rate of traditional job boards.

Ford breaks down why he walked away from a half million dollar business to build a consumer product, how he's building a UGC program where he personally teaches creators to post content that converts followers into Runway users, and why AI is actually a tailwind for what he's building rather than a threat.

He explains:

• Why the job search is a timing game and not a numbers game
• How Runway connects to 200,000 company career sites and surfaces jobs days before they hit LinkedIn or Indeed
• Why Runway users get interviews at six and a half times the rate of traditional job search platforms
• How AI agents help students tailor resumes, prepare for interviews, and identify who to network with for each specific job
• Why 52% of recent college graduates are underemployed and what that means for the market Runway is building in
• His number one advice for creators launching companies: build for the problem your audience is consistently asking about, not just for your audience size

Chapters:

• 00:00:00 Introduction: From 400K Followers to Building Runway
• 00:01:11 The Content Creation Origin: From Zero to 400K Followers
• 00:03:11 Building an Agency to Half a Million in Revenue
• 00:05:00 The Pivot Moment: When 300K Followers Revealed the Real Problem
• 00:06:25 What is Runway: Solving the Timing Game, Not the Numbers Game
• 00:08:11 The Competitive Advantage: First Access to 200K Company Career Sites
• 00:10:15 The Results: 6.5% Interview Rate vs 1% Industry Standard
• 00:11:17 How Runway Works: AI Matching, Personalized Prep, and Smart Curation
• 00:16:37 The AI Disruption Debate: Entry Level Jobs and the Future
• 00:17:44 Leveraging Creator Advantage: Content as Distribution Engine
• 00:19:11 The UGC Strategy: Building a Sales Force of Content Creators
• 00:22:12 Platform Expansion: Mastering One Channel Before Adding the Next
• 00:23:39 Creator Entrepreneur Inspiration: Hormozi, Gray, and the Course Economy
• 00:26:01 What's Next: From 100K to 1M ARR by Year End
• 00:27:01 Advice for Creator Entrepreneurs: Build for the Problem, Not the Audience

HotStart VC

Subscribe to the HotStart VC newsletter: https://hotstart.beehiiv.com/

Become a HotStart Angel and co-invest with us in celebrity-founded brands starting from $5,000: https://www.hotstart.vc/hotstart-angels/

Check out our fund: https://www.hotstart.vc/

Scott van den Berg

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-van-den-berg-22b534150/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottvandenberg_/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@scottvandenberg_

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@scottvandenbergvc

Ford Coleman

Runway: https://www.joinrunway.io/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ford-coleman/

HotStart VC is a fund that exclusively invests in brands founded by celebrities and creators. We're the go-to platform for celebrities and creators launching brands, providing capital, strategic support, and the infrastructure to scale.

Azhar Muhammad is the COO of Paradigm Sports, the athlete representation firm behind some of the most successful athlete-founded companies in the world, including Conor McGregor's Proper 12 Irish Whiskey, which sold for $600 million just three years after launching, and Dakota Ditcheva's Vann Norway fine water brand.

Paradigm Sports is not your typical athlete representation firm. While most firms run on short-term commissions tied to fight purses, a model that expires the day the athlete retires, Paradigm co-builds companies with their talent, creating multi-asset portfolios that generate sustainable value long after the competitive career ends. Nine years ago, they reached their inflection point when they architected the first crossover fight between Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather. That same year they launched Proper 12, proving that direct-to-consumer influence from super athletes could far exceed what traditional marketing ever yielded.

Azhar breaks down why fame is the distribution and not the business model, how they decide when to launch a venture versus take a traditional sponsorship deal, and why the best athlete-founded companies are the ones that can stand entirely on the merits of the product long after the fame fades.

He explains:

• Why most athlete representation firms are economically misaligned and how Paradigm built a different model around equity and long-term value
• How they architected Conor McGregor's Proper 12, which sold for $600 million just three years after launch
• Why category alignment matters more than reach and why the wrong category always fails regardless of audience size
• How they think about career timing when launching ventures: early career, peak, and post-retirement each carry different risks and opportunities
• Why he studies the celebrity brands that fail just as much as the ones that succeed
• His number one advice for athletes launching companies: balance short-term financial needs with building for post-retirement so you fight because you want to, not because you have to

Chapters:

• 00:00:00 Introduction: The Hidden Firm Behind Conor McGregor's Empire
• 00:01:17 The Paradigm Sports Origin Story: 18 Years of Athlete Advocacy
• 00:03:16 The Money Fight: When Conor vs Mayweather Changed Everything
• 00:05:09 Why Most Athlete Representation Firms Get It Wrong
• 00:07:56 Scouting Founders vs Scouting Fighters: The Selection Criteria
• 00:10:11 Timing the Founder, Not the Fame: When to Build
• 00:14:30 The Proper 12 Blueprint: How Conor Built a Whiskey Brand
• 00:17:00 What Makes Great Athlete Entrepreneurs: Beyond Reach and Enthusiasm
• 00:19:51 The Future of Athlete Ventures: From Spirits to Sports Tech
• 00:22:05 Why Combat Sports Innovates While Traditional Sports Stagnate
• 00:25:00 The Mac is Back: Building Around Conor's Return Fight
• 00:25:48 Dakota Ditchevo and Van Water: Perfect Category Alignment
• 00:29:39 Advice for Athletes: Fight Because You Want To, Not Because You Have To

HotStart VC

Subscribe to the HotStart VC newsletter: https://hotstart.beehiiv.com/

Become a HotStart Angel and co-invest with us in celebrity-founded brands starting from $5,000: https://www.hotstart.vc/hotstart-angels/

Check out our fund: https://www.hotstart.vc/

Scott van den Berg

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-van-den-berg-22b534150/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottvandenberg_/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@scottvandenberg_

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@scottvandenbergvc

Azhar Muhammad-Saul

Paradigm Sports: https://www.paradigmsports.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar-muhammad-saul-85114b17/

HotStart VC is a fund that exclusively invests in brands founded by celebrities and creators. We're the go-to platform for celebrities and creators launching brands, providing capital, strategic support, and the infrastructure to scale.

Yoni Bierig is the co-founder of Tempted, a wine-based ready-to-drink Shirley Temple cocktail co-founded with influencer, DJ, and entrepreneur Sommer Ray, whose previous company Imarais Beauty was just acquired.

Yoni had no experience in the beverage industry when he started Tempted. But when he met Sommer at dinner in Atlantic City and they both ordered Shirley Temples, the idea clicked. What started as a childhood favorite became the foundation for a brand generating a quarter million likes and millions of views in 30 days without spending a single dollar on ads.

Tempted is a 7% ABV, four grams of sugar, 150 calorie wine-based RTD with a full ingredient label on the can, something most alcohol brands still refuse to do. Unlike most celebrity brands that lead with the famous face, Yoni built the brand around the product first and introduced Sommer gradually. His philosophy is simple: the celebrity should be the fuel, not the ship. Because if the ship is the celebrity and something goes wrong, the whole business goes down with it.

Yoni breaks down why he turned down national expansion opportunities because the brand wasn't ready, how Sommer's DJ tours create built-in distribution opportunities where clubs pay to stock Tempted before she even arrives, and why he posts the good, bad, and ugly of building the company every single day on LinkedIn as a public journal.

He explains:

• Why the RTD space is on a rocket ship while the broader alcohol industry is on a downward spiral
• Why being wine-based allows Tempted to be placed in distribution channels other RTD brands cannot access
• Why investors have a bad taste in their mouth about celebrity brands and how Yoni navigates that uphill battle
• Why he believes the VC space has turned into private equity and what that means for early stage founders
• How building in public on LinkedIn turned followers into super customers who buy the product and give honest feedback
• His number one advice for founders working with celebrity co-founders: focus on the product and let the celebrity be the fuel, not the ship

Chapters:

• 00:00:00 Introduction: From Summer Rae to Building Tempted
• 00:00:51 The Founding Story: When a Shirley Temple Sparked a Business
• 00:02:20 First-Time Beverage Founder: The Advantage of Naivety
• 00:04:43 What is Tempted: Wine-Based RTD with Full Transparency
• 00:08:32 Celebrity Product Market Fit: Why Summer Rae is the Perfect Partner
• 00:10:57 Leveraging Celebrity Platform: From Social to Retail Strategy
• 00:13:03 Summer Rae the Entrepreneur: Beyond the 20 Million Dollar Exit
• 00:15:34 Distribution Strategy: Staying Focused and Avoiding National Too Soon
• 00:17:53 Building in Public: The Power of Transparency on LinkedIn
• 00:22:33 Celebrity Brand Inspiration: From Skims to Finnish Long Drink
• 00:26:13 The Celebrity as Fuel Not Fire: Strategic Brand Positioning
• 00:28:03 Raising Capital: The Honest Truth About VC Skepticism
• 00:31:57 Survive Until You Thrive: Advice for Struggling Founders
• 00:32:35 What's Next for Tempted and Final Founder Advice

HotStart VC

Subscribe to the HotStart VC newsletter: https://hotstart.beehiiv.com/

Become a HotStart Angel and co-invest with us in celebrity-founded brands starting from $5,000: https://www.hotstart.vc/hotstart-angels/

Check out our fund: https://www.hotstart.vc/

Scott van den Berg

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-van-den-berg-22b534150/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottvandenberg_/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@scottvandenberg_

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@scottvandenbergvc

Yoni Bierig

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanbierig/

Tempted: https://drinktempted.com/

HotStart VC is a fund that exclusively invests in brands founded by celebrities and creators. We're the go-to platform for celebrities and creators launching brands, providing capital, strategic support, and the infrastructure to scale.

Deborah Benton is the founder and Managing Partner of Willow Growth Partners, an emerging growth consumer fund that has backed some of the most successful celebrity- and creator-founded brands in the market, including Katy Perry's De Soi, Gal Gadot's Goodles, and Molly Sims' YSE Beauty.

She spent most of her career as an operator in consumer brands before launching Willow in 2020. The gap she saw was simple: there were no early stage consumer brand funds providing seed capital, so the only option was tech-oriented funds that underwrote and valued consumer brands exactly like tech companies. That led to destruction of value and unfortunate outcomes for phenomenal brands. Willow was built to fix that.

Deborah is sufficiently skeptical of celebrity brands, and appropriately so. When a celebrity or creator is involved, she spends a lot of time diligencing their role, their motivation, their expectations, and whether the relationship between the operating team and the talent actually makes sense. Because at the end of the day, the brand has to stand on its own two feet. A creator can move a deal from yes to no just as easily as they can move it from no to yes.

She breaks down why celebriites with massive platforms like Katy Perry are better for awareness while smaller creators like Amber Fillerup are better for conversion, why she passes on pre-launch brands raising at 50 to 100 million dollar valuations, and why the most common reason celebrity brands fail is because the hard conversations never happen upfront.

She explains:

• Why Mr. Beast being front and center in Feastables is fundamentally different from Gal Gadot staying behind the scenes at Goodles
• Why Hailey Bieber built Rhode to a billion dollar exit on DTC only before ever launching in Sephora
• Why talent can open retail doors but the product alone determines whether those doors stay open
• Why she tells some celebrities not to raise outside capital at all and to keep it as a lifestyle business
• Why the brand has to stand on its own two feet regardless of who the celebrity is
• Her number one advice for investors evaluating celebrity brands: be very disciplined and diligence the relationship

Chapters:

• 00:00:00 Introduction: Debra Benton and Willow Growth Partners
• 00:00:28 The Gap in Consumer Brand Investing: Why Willow Was Born
• 00:03:30 Investment Thesis: Emerging Growth and Everyday Wellness
• 00:04:22 The Qualitative and Quantitative Framework
• 00:09:01 The Celebrity Brand Reality: Appropriately Skeptical
• 00:09:49 Diligencing Celebrity Founders: Alignment is Everything
• 00:11:43 The Most Common Reasons for Saying No
• 00:13:06 Why Celebrities Make These Mistakes: Education and Advisors
• 00:14:52 Celebrities vs Creators: Different Superpowers
• 00:16:15 Brand Positioning: When to Put the Celebrity Front and Center
• 00:17:52 The Timing Question: Day One vs After Product-Market Fit
• 00:19:40 Managing Expectations: The Haley Bieber Effect
• 00:21:13 Valuation Discipline: Passing on 50-100 Million Pre-Revenue Deals
• 00:22:59 The Retail Advantage: Opening Doors vs Selling Through
• 00:25:15 What's Needed for the Next Generation of Celebrity Brands
• 00:26:20 What's Next for Willow: Food Innovation and Women's Health
• 00:28:59 Final Advice: Be Disciplined and Optimistically Cautious

HotStart VC

Subscribe to the HotStart VC newsletter: https://hotstart.beehiiv.com/

Become a HotStart Angel and co-invest with us in celebrity-founded brands starting from $5,000: https://www.hotstart.vc/hotstart-angels/

Check out our fund: https://www.hotstart.vc/

Scott van den Berg

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-van-den-berg-22b534150/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottvandenberg_/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@scottvandenberg_

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@scottvandenbergvc

Deborah Benton

Willow Growth Partners: https://willowgrowth.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debenton/

HotStart VC is a fund that exclusively invests in brands founded by celebrities and creators. We're the go-to platform for celebrities and creators launching brands, providing capital, strategic support, and the infrastructure to scale.

Kristina Subbotina is a creator entrepreneur and startup lawyer with tens of thousands of followers who built an audience sharing real legal horror stories from her decade in Big Law, and used that platform to launch Lexsy, an AI-powered legal operating system for startups.

It started with a push from an unlikely source. A General Partner at A16Z spent five months relentlessly sending Kristina content ideas, convinced she had something the founder community desperately needed. His pitch was simple: founders don't know what they don't know until it becomes a problem. So Kristina started posting, and once she stopped making boring professional content and started dancing on TikTok while sharing real legal templates she used at Cooley, everything changed.

That audience became the foundation for Lexsy. Lexsy is a self-updating legal operating system for startups that combines software and services into one platform, handling everything from cap tables and data rooms to fundraising and exit at around half the cost of Big Law. For six months Kristina was not actively selling or taking new clients, and still reached $400K in ARR driven entirely by the trust she had built through content.

Kristina breaks down why content is the most powerful distribution tool a founder can have, why AI will empower lawyers rather than replace them, and why hiring A-players takes forever but is the only way to build a world-class company.

She explains:

• How a GP at A16Z pushed her to start creating content and why that changed everything
• How she went from boring professional content to dancing on TikTok while sharing real legal templates from Cooley
• The legal horror story of a founder who used Claude to draft a sale agreement and ended up fleeing to another city to escape a five-year non-compete
• Why Lexsy operates at 50% cheaper than Big Law through AI agents trained on top-tier legal work
• Why AI will not replace lawyers but will raise expectations so dramatically that the job will look completely different
• Her number one advice for creators launching companies: identify something you are truly passionate about because only that will carry you through

Chapters:

• 00:00:00 Introduction: From Big Law to Building Lexi, an AI Law Firm
• 00:01:08 The Content Creation Origin: When a GP at A16Z Wouldn't Stop Pushing
• 00:03:05 The Content Strategy: Dancing on TikTok While Sharing Real Legal Value
• 00:06:42 Legal Horror Stories: The Founder Who Used Claude to Sell His Company
• 00:08:17 What is Lexsy: The Legal Operating System for Startups
• 00:09:57 Software Plus Services: Why Lexsyi is Both a Platform and a Law Firm
• 00:12:10 Training the Best AI Legal Agents: Why Data Quality Determines Output
• 00:14:09 The Future of Lawyers: Empowered, Not Replaced by AI
• 00:17:05 The Creator Advantage: Building Trust at Scale Without Ads
• 00:19:17 Creators as the New Celebrities: Democratizing the Attention Economy
• 00:24:01 Balancing Creator and Founder: The Prioritization Challenge
• 00:25:27 Hiring A-Players: Why It Takes Time But Never Compromise
• 00:27:22 What's Next: Scaling Content, Podcasts, and Speaking Engagements
• 00:28:43 Advice for Creator Entrepreneurs: Find Your Why and Persevere

HotStart VC

Subscribe to The Fame Game newsletter: https://hotstart.beehiiv.com/

Become a HotStart Angel and co-invest with us in celebrity-founded brands starting from $5,000: https://www.hotstart.vc/hotstart-angels/

Check out our fund: https://www.hotstart.vc/

Scott van den Berg

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-van-den-berg-22b534150/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottvandenberg_/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@scottvandenberg_

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@scottvandenbergvc

Kristina Subbotina

Lexsy: https://www.lexsy.ai/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristinasubbotina.esq/

HotStart is the go-to platform for celebrities and creators launching brands, providing capital, strategic support, and the infrastructure to scale.

John Foraker is the co-founder and CEO of Once Upon a Farm, a fresh organic baby and kids food brand co-founded with Hollywood actress Jennifer Garner that recently IPO'd at a $724 million valuation on the New York Stock Exchange.

John wasn't one of the original founders. Cassandra Curtis and Ari Raz started the company in 2015, and John came on as an early angel investor after spending nearly 15 years as CEO of Annie's, taking it public in 2012 and selling it to General Mills for $820 million. When Jennifer Garner's team reached out in 2017, she and John met for what was supposed to be a 30-minute call. It lasted four hours. By the end, they both said the same thing: I'm in, if you're in.

Jennifer Garner isn't the type of celebrity co-founder who shows up for the photo shoot and disappears. She's on weekly leadership calls, she has buyer phone numbers saved in her phone, and she follows up on sales calls at 11pm from a makeup chair on set.

John breaks down why he chose to go public instead of selling to a strategic buyer despite years of acquisition interest, how they went from 300 to 10,000 distribution points in a single year, and why building a public benefit corporation with a mission to drive systemic change in childhood nutrition has been central to every decision they've made since day one.

He explains:

• How Jennifer Garner became a co-founder and what made her the authentic fit for Once Upon a Farm
• Why word of mouth is still the number one discovery channel for the brand after nine years
• How they went from 300 to 10,000 distribution points in one year and why that strategy is too risky for most brands
• Why going public was the best path to stay independent and execute their mission rather than selling to a strategic buyer
• His number one advice for founders working with celebrity co-founders: cultural fit and long-term commitment matter more than anything else

Chapters:

• 00:00:00 Introduction: From Jennifer Garner to a IPO
• 00:01:08 The Founding Story: When Two Founders Met and Created Once Upon a Farm
• 00:02:20 The Jennifer Garner Partnership: Finding Authentic Celebrity Product Market Fit
• 00:04:56 The Mission Statement: Building a Public Benefit Corporation
• 00:08:09 Leveraging Celebrity Platform: How Jennifer Shows Up Every Single Day
• 00:11:55 Product Development: From Baby Food to Age 12 and Beyond
• 00:14:24 The IPO Journey: Four Years of Preparation and a Government Shutdown
• 00:19:19 The Celebrity Brand Landscape: What Makes Some Succeed and Others Fail
• 00:22:43 The Jennifer Garner Model: Joining Existing Companies vs Building from Scratch
• 00:24:01 Retail Strategy: Going from 300 to 10,000 Doors in One Year
• 00:25:38 What's Next: Fresh Organic Meat Products and 2027 Innovation Pipeline
• 00:26:54 Advice for Celebrity Brand Founders: The Marriage Analogy and Long-Term Commitment

HotStart VC

Subscribe to the HotStart VC newsletter: https://hotstart.beehiiv.com/

Become a HotStart Angel and co-invest with us in celebrity-founded brands starting from $5,000: https://www.hotstart.vc/hotstart-angels/

Check out our fund: https://www.hotstart.vc/

Scott van den Berg

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-van-den-berg-22b534150/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottvandenberg_/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@scottvandenbergvc

John Foraker

Once Upon a Farm: https://onceuponafarmorganics.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-foraker-0061732/

HotStart VC is a fund that exclusively invests in brands founded by celebrities and creators. We're the go-to platform for celebrities and creators launching brands, providing capital, strategic support, and the infrastructure to scale.