Episode 147: Arik Keller - Founder and CEO, Mable

Inspiration for a business idea can come from the most unique scenarios. Case in point, take Arik, who as a serial tech entrepreneur, decided to purchase a small-town grocery store in Vermont at Sugarbush. And pretty much everyone, for good reason as I would have told him the same thing, was that he was crazy and it was just an overall bad idea. Well, this crazy idea turned into the inspiration that led him down the path of Mable. As he was getting into the weeds of running a local grocery store, he discovered how archaic this industry was in terms of the ordering process, which was still phone, text, or email. Mable is modernizing the ordering process with an enterprise-level B2B eCommerce platform to simplify wholesale in the grocery and convenience industry. The company recently announced a $3M seed round of funding led by Venrock, Accomplice, and Founder Collective. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: *Arik’s career and his different roles in numerous successful startups, including the story of how his company was acquired by WHERE, which was then acquired by PayPal just months later. *The a-ha moment that led him to start Mable and all the details on the company. *Tips on what makes a great Product Manager. *Advice for first-time founders on raising capital. *And more! If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.