Consumer VC: Venture Capital I B2C Startups I Commerce | Early-Stage Investing I Brands | Technology

Our guest today is Jordan Gaspar, the Managing Partner at AF Ventures. AF Ventures is dedicated to growing the next generation of brands, having invested in Circul, By Heart and Harmless Harvest. We discuss how she founded AF Ventures and leveraged her network as a lawyer, and how she thinks about growth for digitally native brands in this current age. Some of the questions I ask her: Can you please share a little about AF Ventures background? What was your initial attraction to consumer brands? How has AF Ventures evolved over the past few years? What are the most recent trends within consumer that you are most passionate about? How has COVID impacted recent trends? Does a product “need to work in retail” for you to invest? Why did you decide to raise a SPAC? We’ve also seen incredible growth from brands despite global supply chain issues. As an investor and advisor, how do you navigate or comprehend where we are currently at? What’s one thing you would change about venture capital? What VC advice do you have for entrepreneurs/founders?

My guest today is Marc Hostovsky, founder of Minoan. Minoan connects people with products in spaces that feel like home. This is a concept that Marc calls native retail. We discuss what’s missing today when it comes to trying out products, the intersection of ecommerce and retail and what is actually native retail. Here are the questions I ask Marc: What was your attraction in ecommerce? Why did you want to work in ecommerce? What were some of your learnings at Walmart that have impacted you? What were you doing at Walmart? The importance of pace and hiring Hiring missionaries vs mercenaries What was the insight that led to the founding of Minoan? Why did you decide to build a product that wasn’t in ecommerce but was around physical retail or native retail? Not really having products to shine Why do people like shopping in stores? Real world shoppable experiences - be in moments of use, integrating commerce What are the use cases? Walk us through when and why a customer would use Minoan? Is the goal to eventually to become an online retailer or stay as a marketplace? What’s the customer experience like? How did you first approach hotels, Airbnbs and other places?How do you partner? How do you monetize? Is it a marketplace model? How do you work with brands? What was your approach to growth?What types of properties do you look for? What was your approach to raising money?What was challenging about the process? What’s one thing you would change about the fundraising process? What’s one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?Why Buddism is true? By Robert Wright Competing Against Luck What’s one piece of advice you have for founders?

Our guest today is Natalie Gordon, founder and CEO of Babylist. Babylist is a baby registry and ecommerce platform, combining content, commerce and data to serve millions of expecting and new parents. We focus on why Natalie decided to start Babylist when she just became a new mother, how reading The Lean Startup impacted her decision making to solving the chicken and the egg problem of marketplaces, finding product-market fit and a unique approach to partnerships. Here are some of the questions I ask Natalie: 1. What was the insight that led to the founding of Babylist? 11 years ago - creating your own baby registry There must be a better way!!!! Worked on another startup in the language learning space If you can work on it for Small aspirations day by day Lean startup Inflection point on PinterestDid you always want to become an entrepreneur? What were some lessons learned during your time at Amazon that were helpful in your journey? What were some of the first steps that you had to take to validate your idea? How do you think about using content to lead to curation to purchase? What are the requirements to sell on Babylist? When you have a marketplace, you have a chicken and the egg problem. What were the first steps you took to solve for it? Was it tougher getting supply going vs. demand or vise versa? Did you keep inventory?How did you approach demand / customer acquititon channels in the early days? How did you approach raising capital? What were some of the moments that as you look back were actually huge unlocks for your business? How did you make the business more sustainable for you You’ve now started selling your own products and aren’t just a marketplace. How do you think about what products to launch? What has been the reaction? How do you think about trying and testing out products for parents online and in brick and mortar? What has been the result during the pandemic when it comes to purchase behavior? What’s one thing you would change about venture capital? What’s one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally? Professionally: No rules rules by Reid Hastings Personally: Dear Sugar - online advice columnWhat’s one piece of advice that you have for founders? Long game Relationships are long

Our guest today is Nick Saltarelli one of the Co-founders of Mid-Day Squares. Mid-Day Squares is the first functional chocolate bar. Nick founded the company with his wife, Leslie and brother-in-law Jake. We discuss how and why his family wanted to start a chocolate company, why they decided to vertically integrate instead of outsourcing manufacturing, their combination of marrying content with a CPG and much more. Without further ado, here’s Nick. And there you have it. I hope you all enjoyed Nick’s story of how and why he started Mid-Day Squares. Did you always want to know you wanted to be an entrepreneur? What were some of the pivotal moments in your life that helped shaped you personally and professionally, how you wanted to work with people? Why did you focus on CPG? How did you meet Lez? How did you land on chocolate? Why did you decide to share everything publicly? How did Jake come on board? Is it a tough dynamic working with your wife and your brother-in-law? What was your process for raising capital? How did you think about brand and branding? Why did you decide to create your own manufacturing plant vs. outsourcing manufacturing? How do you think about storytelling and building a passionate audience?

Our guest today is our second second time guest, Mike Duda. Mike is the General Partner at Bullish. Bullish is a consumer only venture capital fund and creative agency. Some of their investments include Sunday, Spark Grills, Hu, Care/of. I mention these brands specifically because all the founders of those companies have been on the podcast but they’ve also invested in Peloton, Harry’s Warby Parker. If you want to learn the founding story of how Mike founded Bullish, highly recommend his first episode in 2020. In this episode we focus on his process to identifying a consumer insight, what needs to happen in order for an insight to become an investment opportunity and his analysis on consumer behavior. I was delighted Mike was willing to come back on the show for a chat, without further ado, here he is. Questions I ask Mike: What’s your process to identifying a nascent consumer insight? I’ve had investors come on the show talk about their jobs are to identify the difference between a consumer trend and a fad. How do you make that distinction? What has to happen in order for a trend to become big? One of the massive trends in 2010s was home fitness, and you were big winners with your investment in Peloton. I’d love it if you could walk through how you made that investment? What's the next big thing in consumer that you think is under-appreciated or contrarian? What’s often misunderstood investing in consumer oriented companies? If the bet is right when it comes to a trend, how important is having a competitive advantage in your product? When you think about the major themes and changes in consumer behavior, what comes to mind? Is investing in consumer products saturated since it's easier than ever to launch a company? What do you think is misunderstood by tech when it comes to CPG? What’s misunderstood when it comes to brand? What’s under-appreciated when it comes to building a brand? What’s one piece of advice you have for founders?

My guest today is Sumi Das, who is a Partner at CapitalG. CapitalG is Alphabet’s independent growth fund. Some of their investments include Airbnb, Lyft, and Duolingo. We discuss CapitalG’s relationship to Google, Google Ventures, and the advantages of a single LP, Sumi spends alot of time not only thinking about consumer opportunities in North America,, but also in emerging markets so we focus on some of the differences building consumer technology and evaluating opportunities in different regions and what makes technology transferable to other markets and not transferable. Without further ado, here’s Sumi. Here are some of the questions I ask Sumi: What was your interest in technology? How did you end up at CapitalG, and also, can you tell us a little about what CapitalG is and your relationship to Alphabet and Google?The future is mobile - what’s the future today? What’s your definition of growth-stage investing?How big can this market be? Can they scale to adjacent markets? How do you think about the differences when investing and building companies in emerging markets vs. the U.S.?What makes a piece of technology transferable into other markets? What type of market do you have to start by building everything at the same time vs. focusing on one specific use case? How does this translate into your theory of when it makes sense to bundle vs. unbundle? How does scale look different? When you’re investing in emerging markets, what consumer characteristics are you looking for or are appealing? How do you think about engineering talent abroad and recruiting for your companies? How do you think about valuations at the growth stage in this current market? They say that growth stage happens when you have product-market fit. How do you analyze on a deeper level if a company does have product-market fit and the depth of that connection? What’s one thing you would change about VC?l What’s one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?Professionally - Sam Walton biography What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received? What’s one piece of advice you have for founders?

Thank you Ashish for introducing me to our guest today, Nuno Gonçalves Pedro, General Partner at Chameleon. Chameleon typically invests at the seed and series a level principally product led technology companies. Some of their portfolio includes Draftkings, Robinhood and Keepsafe. We discuss the evolution of eCommerce, if companies actually create new markets, and how he uses quant to make investment decisions. Without further ado, here’s Nuno. Questions I ask Nuno: What was your attraction to technology? What led you into venture capital? When you look at consumer investing and the evolution of ecommerce in Asia, what technologies do you think are going to make its way to the west? How did Chamaeleon come together? Why has your focus been consumer? What makes you excited as a consumer investor?Where do you think some of the big opportunities are in consumer? Walk me through your due diligence process -How do you analyze teams? How do you use quant to help make decisions? What are the important insights and data points? How do you think about the next consumer platform? There’s lots of buzz around the metaverse, web3. How do you think about what’s coming next after the iPhone? What tends to be the reason why you pass on a consumer tech company? What’s one thing you would change about venture capital? What’s one book that inspired you professionally and one book that inspired you personally?Professionally - Post Capital Society - Drucker The How of Happiness - Sonia Modern Physics Ancient Faith What’s the best piece of advice that you’ve received? What’s one piece of advice that you have for founders?

Our guest today is Bilal Zuberi, Partner at Lux Capital. Lux Capital Investing in people inventing the future. Some of their investments include Happiest Baby, Citizen, Carbon Health and Duck Duck Go. Bilal also founded GEO2 Technologies and comes from an extensive technical and science background. What we explore on today’s episode is how to invest at the intersection of deep tech and consumer. Some of the questions I ask him: One of your focuses is investing in Deep Tech. We haven’t covered Deep Tech yet on the podcast, what is deep tech?Business model innovation vs technological innovation Mission-oriented go to market chops When you think about consumer deep tech companies, what do you think about? What are the use cases where consumers could benefit from deep tech? Betting on teams that own the problem, not just the solution How is investing in deep tech different to other types of categories when you think about return timeline?How flexible are you with the length? Even if you do have an incredible consumer tech product with a clear competitive advantage or compelling value prop, how do you analyze the marketing and branding?Would you invest in a company that has compelling technology, but you don’t understand the branding or how it would work? Can brand be a sustainable competitive advantage? How do you analyze deep tech products? What’s your diligence process? What’s tends to be the reason why you pass on a consumer-focused company? Why did you join Lux and how do you describe Lux’s investment philosophy? How are you thinking about today’s market when it comes to price? What’s one thing you would change about venture capital? What’s one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally? Professionally - High Growth Handbook Personally - Engineering Marvels of the World What’s the best piece of advice that you’ve received? What’s one piece of advice you have for founders?

Thank you Erin Grant for pitching this as an episode idea and making it happen. This episode is all about storytelling. What does a good story need, what are the mechanics, and how to build a compelling brand through the power of storytelling. To tackle this topic, I’m joined by Brentos Fernandez, Head of Creative at Listen Ventures and Jeff Cantalupo who is the founder and General Partner at Listen Ventures. Listen Ventures. Backs and builds the brands of tomorrow Including Calm, Kiwi Co, Factor, Catch Co, I/D, & Slumberkins. Without further ado, here they are. How do you craft a good story? What are the elements? Is there a part to storytelling that brands or people typically miss? Point of view When you think of aspiring, young brands, what do they tend to do right vs. the incumbents?How are they able to stand out from the rest of their peers with storytelling? How do you analyze brands that have a face to the brand vs. brands that don’t? How do you shape the persona of the brand? When you invest and consult with brands, what is usually missing that you can help with the story? Story being built out of human need Story Emotional connection - Post-brand Organic growth stories How do you define community? How have brands leveraged their authentic story for growth? What’s an example of an inauthentic story? After a brand gets acquired, what must incumbents do in order for keep that brand authenticity alive? In this era where you don’t have the growth arbitrage channels do you need to have a celebrity part of the brand in order to help tell that story and be seen? When founders pitch to you, what do they usually do wrong when they are telling a story? Brand - sum of all the experiences What does brand mean to you? What’s one thing you would change about the perception of storytelling and/or branding? What’s one book that inspired each of you personally and professionally? What’s one piece of advice you have for founders?

Thank you Radha Kapoor for the introduction to Michele Romanow, co-founder and CEO of Clearco. Clearco offers fast affordable funding for ecommerce companies to fund your inventory or marketing needs. Michele is a serial entrepreneur and also one of the dragon’s on Canada’s Dragon’s Den. We discuss what’s misunderstood about scaling ecommerce companies, when venture capital makes sense vs. revenue based financing, her aha moment on Dragon’s Den that led to founding ClearCo and much more. Without further ado, here’s Michele. You’ve been an entrepreneur your whole career. What was the origin story behind Clearco? How did you and Andrew start Clearco? What was your first test if this new finance model could work? How did you think about scale for and what was the early diligence process like when trying to work out if you’re going to finance these companies?What are the requirements? How have those requirements evolved? What were some of your learnings as you were growing Clearco that was most surprising? How did you approach raising capital from VCs? What was their initial response?Did you have any VCs that thought what you were doing was a conflict to venture capital? How do you work together with venture capital? There are no more Facebook arbitrage opportunities, some consumer VCs have shifted to investing in eCommerce infrastructure where the customer are brands, What’s your assessment of the current landscape within DNVBs when it comes to growth and financing options?We say on the podcast a lot - it’s easy than ever to build a company, harder than ever to build a brand. What’s key for brands to be able to get past the noise and become large sustainable companies? What makes a brand compelling to you to invest in (either with Clearco or as an angel/investor on Dragon’s Den)? ClearCo probably sees a lot of DTC metrics from 1000s of companies.Which are the best measures of success? Which metrics are most misunderstood? If she could only pick 3 metrics to understand health/growth of a brand — which 3 would she pick? How do you also think about the competitive landscape now for the alternative capital financing that you pioneered? What are some of the other products you offer founders? I know the focus is eCommerce businesses, but do you also think about helping DNVBs as they head into retail?How do you think about launching new products at Clearco? Tell you where you can improve in your business? If you build a killer product people will come Recently, Andrew stepped back and became Executive Chairman, you became the CEO from President. What was the reason for the change? How do you think about launching new products at Clearco? What’s one thing you would change about venture capital? 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 that you have for founders?