Consumer VC: Venture Capital I B2C Startups I Commerce | Early-Stage Investing I Brands | Technology Dan Reich (Troops.ai + TULA) - From skincare to SaaS, building B2C and B2B businesses
Apr 29, 2021
41:48
My guest today is Dan Reich, who is a serial entrepreneur. Some of the companies he founded are Spinback, TULA and Troops.ai. TULA started as a digitally native health and beauty brand where Dan served as CEO from inception to over $1mm in sales in less than one year. Troops is a B2B technology company that is building a mobile-first, intelligent CRM. Since Dan has extensive backgrounds in both B2B and B2C, in this episode we focus on some of the differences when building a B2C company vs. B2B.
Here are some questions I ask Dan -
- What was your attraction to entrepreneurship?
- Why did you decide to launch a skincare brand? What was the insight?
- How did you think about the competitive landscape within skincare?
- When did you realize after launching this could be something real?
- What was your approach to scaling online?
- What was your initial omnichannel strategy?
- How were you able to successfully fundraise?
- What was the hardest part of TULA's business to get investors over the line?
- Why did you decide to step down as CEO?
- What compelled you to start a completely different business in Troops.ai?
- What are some of the differences building an enterprise business vs. consumer business?
- As an investor, what do you look for in an entrepreneur?
- Are there specific categories you focus on or find attractive?
- Walk me through your decision making process.
- What's one thing you'd change with the fundraising / venture capital process?
- What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?
- What's the best piece of advice that you've received?
- What's one piece of advice for founders currently building?