Decoded with Ryan Pallotta

Jeremy Moser is the Co-Founder and CEO of uSERP, a company that helps brands grow through performance-driven SEO and digital PR.In this podcast, Jeremy describes how he helps companies like Monday.com and Robin Hood get in front of the people who are most likely to become customers.He explains how his firm has set itself apart by being revenue-focused, creating content designed to bring high-quality, high-intent leads over the line. Jeremy then touches on why marketing a product or service via podcasts is a great way to build relationships with potential customers. Pods mentioned:My First Million - https://www.mfmpod.com/The Game w/ Alex Hormozi - https://gymlaunch.libsyn.com/Noah Kagan Presents - https://okdork.com/podcast/

 Emilio Masci is the founder of collectibles trading platform MySlabs.com. In our chat, Emilio gives us an overview of his long tenure at legendary hedge-fund SAC Capital and shares its impact on him. He describes his love of collecting baseball cards and comic books and how he combined that passion with his experience in the investing world. The result was MySlabs—a collectibles marketplace on which $35 million was transacted in only its second year of existence. Lastly, we talk about the power of nostalgia and how collectibles are becoming an alternative asset class that more and more people want access to.  

Nicole Wegman is the Founder and CEO of Ring Concierge, the leading luxury jeweler committed to designing for women by women.In our talk, Nicole tells us how her own experience of trying to find the perfect engagement ring led her to leave fashion and get into the jewelry space with Ring Concierge in 2013. She describes the challenges she faced as a newcomer to the traditional, family-oriented, and male-dominated world of New York's diamond district and how she saw the opportunity to bring something fresh to the industry. We discuss how Ring Concierge has blurred the lines between retailer and influencer and the role of social media in the company's success. Nicole then explains how that youthful and cheeky voice has continued to foster an engaged audience—pun very much intended. Nicole also shares her experience of hiring the best talent as the company grows and the importance of mentorship.  

Daniel Broukhim is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of FabFitFun, an eCommerce and media company with over two million subscribers and a valuation of nearly a billion dollars. Daniel is also the Co-Founder of Green Meadow Ventures—a VC firm that​ invests in tech-enabled consumer and enterprise businesses.During our chat, Daniel describes how being part of an entrepreneurial family and community informed his worldview, what he learned about investing from interning at his cousin's hedge fund, and his decision to start a digital agency instead of practicing law.  He then talks us through how FabFitFun started life as a newsletter, was reborn as a subscription box then evolved into a personalized shopping platform built around helping people live their best lives. Daniel also explains how his own health issues influence how he thinks about the platform and lays out a vision for the company's future.

Thane Ritchie has over 30 years of experience in alternative investments, getting his start arbitraging gold at the tender age of 10. He is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Ritchie Capital Management, a privately held hedge fund sponsor. Thane has worked with innovative companies in insurance, energy, media, and technology. Thane saw the opportunity in Facebook very early on, becoming one of its first investors. Between 1998 and 2004, Thane grew a signature fund of $30 million dollars to a peak of $4 billion. During our chat, Thane describes how he was buying and selling commodities before he was old enough to have a paper route, explains why his stepfather—options guru Joe Ritchie—dissuaded him from studying economics in school, and talks about how building relationships with people who can see new paths forward has been key to his edge.  Thane then shares his thoughts about why traditional stocks can't compete with crypto and tells us about InfiniteWorld—a metaverse infrastructure platform that enables brands to create, monetize, and drive consumer engagement with digital content.

Ellen Chen is the Co-Founder of Mendocino Farms—an LA-based fast-casual sandwich chain with an almost cult-like following. Ellen didn't come from a food and beverage background. Still, after meeting her future husband, restauranteur Mario Del Pero, she decided to step away from her impressive career as a consultant to learn about all aspects of the restaurant business. At Skew, his teriyaki restaurant, she worked front-of-house, back-of-house, and even cleaned the bathrooms. At the same time, she became its principal investor. After realizing Skew's scalability limitations, Ellen and Mario created Mendocino Farms. Built around the mantra "eat happy," they immediately implemented the principles passed along to them by their entrepreneurial families. That meant hard work, transparency, and taking excellent care of every stakeholder. Mendocino Farms grew to several booming locations before TPG acquired the firm in 2017. Since stepping away from day-to-day operations in 2020, Ellen has worked to support female-led start-ups through mentorship and investing. In our inspiring chat, Ellen talks about the decision to double down on Mendocino Farms' core product, the guerilla marketing tactics she employed in a pre-social media world, and how she sought to safeguard Mendocino Farms' culture through a time of explosive popularity and growth. Ellen also describes the challenges she faced as a woman in business, asserting that doors would have remained closed to her if not for her male partner.  She explains the importance of having conversations about the incredible disparity between male and female founders seeking investors and describes the practical steps she's taking to redress it.

We're so excited to be talking with Sarah Kunst, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Cleo Capital. Cleo Capital is a multi-stage venture capital firm that focuses on leading investments in pre-seed companies.During a stimulating and inspiring 50 minutes, Sarah talks to us about her start in advertising, her uncanny knack for knowing what's next, and her long-held passion for the “people side” of business. We learn that, despite calling herself a great bullshitter, Sarah is always ready to roll up her sleeves and take a decidedly no-bullshit approach to her work. She shares how she recognizes the importance of providing founders with practical help that they actually need, especially if that help isn't particularly glamourous. In one instance, this entailed babysitting for founders so that they could attend an important dinner with a potential investor.Sarah tells us how the best hedge against imposter syndrome is playing to your strengths and picking up ancillary skills as you need them. She also divulges the central question she asks looking at investment opportunities: "At scale, will this company be a net positive or negative for the world?" and explains how the answer brings her one step closer to purchasing a superyacht.

We're excited to be talking with Ryan Renteria, Founder of Dominate Your Fate, a professional advisory firm working with high achievers.Ryan’s story is an inspiring one. Growing up in a low-income household in Sacramento, California, Ryan attended a high school with a 50% dropout rate.  After seeing the effects of constant financial anxiety on his family, he vowed to make the most of his strongest subject—math—and set a course for a career on Wall Street, becoming the first person from his high school to go to Stanford along the way.After working in equity research at Goldman Sachs he got into the hedge fund business. After successful stints at Balyasny Asset Management and Karsch Capital Management, Ryan took a hard left turn—in a quest for self-actualization—and started working with children’s charities. Though he found the work incredibly meaningful, Ryan still missed the analytical and mathematical aspects of his former career in the hedge fund world. He decided to apply his talents to a new field entirely, becoming a basketball analytics advisor. For the best part of the next decade, he provided analytics-based recommendations that helped teams with draft picks, trades, opponent research, and game strategies. Then, in 2021, Ryan decided to combine what he’d learned in the first and second stages of his career and coach high achievers in the business world. During our uplifting talk, Ryan talks about the role of mental health in maximizing performance, the benefits of meditation and journaling to help with anxiety, and using gratitude to uplift yourself and others.

Joining us today is Alex Bente. In 2018, Alex Co-Founded ADvantage, a global VC fund investing in companies innovating new technologies and disrupting many aspects of the sports space. Innovating in sports runs in the family. Alex's great-grandfather was Adolf Dassler, the founder of the sportswear brand that bears a shortened version of his first and last name—Adidas. Would Jesse Owns have won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics had he not worn the innovative canvas and rubber running spikes hand-made for him by Dassler? Would West Germany have beaten heavily-favored Hungary in the 1954 World Cup final had Dassler's patented screw-in metal cleats not been worn in the second half of a rain-soaked game? Simply put, Dassler’s innovations gave athletes around the world, participating in a range of sports a considerable edge. ADvantage is building upon Alex’s family legacy and investing in entrepreneurs committed to moving sports forward, whether that means giving athletes a competitive advantage, enhancing fans' experience, or redefining what it means to participate in sports altogether. In our chat, Alex talks about what a family name can and can't do, describes his passion for getting more people involved in sports, and shares a vision of how technology will change sports beyond recognition in the decade to come.  

Jason Karp discovered that running an investment fund was no longer his calling at the very peak of his success. His mistake, he tells us, was not retiring from the industry at that exact moment. But by the time Jason shut Tourbillon Capital down in 2018, his calling was becoming clear—he wanted to help people live healthier lives. In the years before joining SAC Capital, managing the legendary firm's largest portfolio, Jason had been diagnosed with several autoimmune diseases. Rather than take medications to mitigate his symptoms, Jason rigorously investigated the effects of the food and products he consumed, gradually regaining his health. While achieving incredible success at Carlson Capital and later Tourbillon, Jason was growing Hu, a company he co-founded with his wife Jessica and brother-in-law Jordan. The award-winning chocolate they created is vegan, paleo, soy-free, refined sugar-free, and laid the groundwork for the HumanCo—the health-focused entity Jason founded in 2019.Jason shares his origin story as an entrepreneurial kid and under-aged card counter in our inspiring sit-down. He also tells us how his investment background and authentic personal health journey give him a massive edge in his mission to make healthier living more accessible for more people.