Andrea Hippeau (Lerer Hippeau) - Investing in Pet Care, When a Digitally Native Brand Should Head Into Retail and Raising from Family Offices vs. VCs

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Our guest today is [Andrea Hippeau](https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrea-hippeau-64658227/), Partner at [Lerer Hippeau](https://www.lererhippeau.com/). Lerer Hippeau is a New York based early stage venture capital fund with some of their investments include Allbirds, Chubbies, Cotopaxi and Glossier. We discuss how to invest in pet products, measuring environmental and sustainability, and what makes a digitally native brand venture backable. 

Some of the questions I ask Andrea:

1. What was your initial attraction to venture capital?

2. Difference between family office vs. venture capital?

3. What interests you in consumer brands?

4. How do you think about regulation?

5. How do you measure environmentally and sustainability?

6. In an era where you don't have those growth marketing arbitrage opportunities on FB and Google, what makes you excited about investing in brands today?

7. One of your areas of expertise is the pet space. How do you dissect such a large market?

    1. What particular sub segments are you most fascinated by and growing?

    2. What areas do you think are over saturated?

8. What were some of your biggest learnings during COVID?

9. I had on Ernest Schmitt from The Craftory who made the case that digitally native brands are hitting retail way to early. When do you think it's appropriate to go into retail?

10. Has Figs going public changed any of your perception of the scale relating to digitally native brands?

11. What are the typical gross margins, CAC/LTV ratio or pay back period you like to see in a company today?

12. What make a digitally native brand venture backable?

13. How do you analyze companies and figure out if a company has gotten past the noise and could be venture scalable?

14. As we (hopefully) come out of COVID soon, what questions are you asking yourself relating to how consumers are going to spend their time and money?

15. What's one thing you would change about venture capital?

16. What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?

17. What's one piece of advice that you have for founders?

18. What's the best piece of advice that you've received?