Rishi Garg (Mayfield) - Consumer Distrust, Curated Experiences, and What’s Next For Social Media

Rishi Garg is a partner at Mayfield. Mayfield global venture capital firm with a people-first philosophy of investing. Mayfield invests primarily in early-stage technology companies in the enterprise and consumer sectors. Some of Rishi’s investments include Grove Collaborative, Oliver Space and Projector.

Rishi backs consumer focused entrepreneurs and has been a longtime executive and entrepreneur at some of the world’s most innovative companies. He’s held senior positions at Twitter, Square, Google, MTV, co-founded FanSnap,a leading venture-backed live event ticket search company acquired by Nextag, Inc. It was great speaking with Rishi about the future of social, consumer distrust in legacy brands, and curation. It was a really fascinating conversation, so without further ado here is Rishi.

Thank you Gautam Gupta for the introduction!

You can follow Rishi @rishigarg. You can also read his latest article Why Trusted Commerce Platforms Will Redefine Key Categories in the Next Ten Years. If you are a founder and working on something innovative, have a question you’d like to hear VCs or founders answer on the show you can DM him and follow on Twitter @mikegelb. You can also follow for episode announcements @consumervc.

A book that inspired Rishi both personally and professionally is Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

In this episode you will learn - 

1. What fascinated him working in technology then becoming a founder? What made him interested in venture capital? When a B2C startup doesn’t have alot of traction, what are some qualities he looks for in founders? His due diligence process?
2. How does he think about commerce and retail in today’s landscape? What are some solutions that he gets excited about in retail that is solving some of these issues? What are changes in consumer behavior is he most focused on?
3. I’ve heard some folks say it’s a contrarian time to be investing in consumer. Why is that and does he believe it? What is one thing that he would change when it came to venture capital? What is one book that inspired him personally and one book that inspired him professionally? What is his most recent investment and what makes him excited about it? What’s one piece of advice for B2C founders?