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

Our guest today is Jackie Fast, Managing Partner at Sandbox Studios VC. Sandbox Studios is a 'next-generation' venture capital firm which addresses the challenge of funding and collaboration expertise for celebrity-owned products. She’s also well known for founding the agency Slingshot Sponsorship which she started from her bedroom with 2k pounds and a laptop to a multi-million-dollar global powerhouse. On this episode we discuss when it makes sense for a company / founder to partner with a celebrity, the intersection of talent and entrepreneurship especially when it comes to consumer brands. Some of the questions I ask Jackie:

Our guests today are Greer Terrler and Cara Kaufman, founders of Simple Food Ventures. Simple Food Ventures is an early stage venture firm that invests in the future of healthy foods and products. We discuss how they both began investing in better for you products, do they only invest in better for the planet or better for you, and what makes a product work on shelf. Here are some of the questions I ask them: What was your attraction to the food and beverage industry?Why did you and how did you both transition into venture capital? What stage is a company usually have to be at in order for you to be initially interested? Founder and the roadmap How did Simple Food Ventures come together? What do you see as the opportunity within food and beverage? Does a product need to be able to get on shelf / in retail for you to peak your interest? Does a product need to be differentiated in order for you both to get excited? Walk me through how you conduct due diligence. How do you source and meet founders? What’s one part of the better-for-you movement that you think is a contrarian take / not as obvious? What’s one thing you would change about venture capital? What’s one book that inspired each of you personally and a book that inspired each of you professionally? What’s one piece of advice that you have for founders?

Our guest is Ksenia Yudina, the Founder and CEO of UNest, the first mobile app that makes it easier than ever for parents to open a simple and affordable tax-advantaged investment account for their kids. We talk about how she immegrated to the U.S., transitioning careers from real estate to finance and where she realized alot of new parents are very motivated to invest in their parents, but don’t kow where to go. Without further ado, here she is. What was it like moving to the United States at 18? What was your first American experience like? How did you make your way to California? How did you become attracted to finance? What was the insight that led to the founding of UNest? Went to alot of networking events First round of capital - Seed round FB Groups that have kids What is the mission? What’s the monetization model? How did you approach getting early adopters excited about UNest? You just raised $26 million, what has been your customer acquitition strategy? How are you looking to scale? What’s the incentive to stay with UNest long term? How did you go about building a technical team? What was the next step? When did you raise investment?What was the biggest reason why investors believed in the product?What was the biggest reason why investors passed? What’s one thing you would change about fundraising? What’s one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?From Zero to OneHard Things About Hard ThingsThe Most Important Thing What’s one piece of advice you have for founders?

Our guest today is Eric Kinariwala, founder and CEO of Capsule. Capsule is the pharmacy that delivers your prescriptions, the same day, for free. We discuss the pharmacy visit that led to his aha moment of founding Capsule, his approach to integrating technology with picking up your prescriptions, and how he approached expansion and scale. Here are some of the questions I ask Eric: You started your career as an investor. Was your goal always to become an entrepreneur. Why did you decide to start Capsule? How did you figure out this was a service other people might also like to have? Did you do any market research?Why was it so badWhat’s the role of the pharmacist?How could you go solve the problemThe first thing was to build a pharmacy?How do you deliver the highest quality experience?Why did doctors, consumers love it at the early days? When you were thinking of starting this business, what were the first steps and the first questions you had to ask to see if this was viable? Did you have to first establish relationships with the doctors so they can send the prescription to you all, what was the process from sending in a note to delivering the medication? Winning together Everybody needs some looking after sometimes How were you able to sell prescriptions online? Was there any regulations you had to jump through? What were some of your early challenges? What were specific medications you first looked at when it came to selling? How did you think about your wedge into the market? What was your process of raising capital?What was the biggest reason why an investor passed? What was the process of finding drivers and building out the delivery business? How do you think about the future of DTC healthcare? How did you approach customer acquisition in the early days? You started in New York, how do you approach market expansion? What’s one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?On the wings of eagles - Ross PerotThe checklist manifesto What’s one piece of advice you have for founders?

My guest today is Mike Smerklo, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Next Coast Ventures and author of Mr. Monkey and Me. Next Coast is investing in a new generation of entrepreneurs building disruptive companies in big markets. We discuss why Mike invests in consumer when his operational experience is in enterprise as well consumer trends he’s passionate about, How he organized a search fund and purchased a company and ran it, and his SHAPE formula and how entrepreneurs could think about mental toughness. Here are the questions I ask him: What was it like being recruited by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz at Opsware? How did you end up purchasing ServiceSource? Why did you? So you have all this software and enterprise experience, when and why did you become interested in consumer? How did Next Coast Ventures start? I know you believe that in order to win today you have to build a community over relying on social media. What does community mean to you? What brands are building amazing communities that should serve as case studies? Do you need to stand for something to win in consumer? What is the future of retail in your mind? What are some of your investment themes? What has been your reaction to the pandemic as you think about new consumer behaviors and opportunities? What’s your diligence process? What’s some of the most common mistake you see entrepreneurs make? Would love to learn about your SHAPE formula and how do you think about mental toughness for entrepreneurs? What’s one thing you would change about VC? What’s one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally? What’s one piece of advice you have for founders?

Thank you Mike Ghaffary for the introduction to our guest today, Walker Drewett, CEO and founder of Nu Brakes. We want to make the brake repair process simple and frustration-free. We discussed why Walker always had his heart being an entrepreneur, the inspiration behind helping people with their cars even though he didn’t come from an automotive background, approach to scale and hiring being a first time CEO. What was your attraction to entrepreneurship?How did you become interested in cars? How did this lead to Nu Wash? What was the day-to-day operations? How did you approach growth? How did Nu Wash evolve into Nu Brakes? How did you discover the opportunity? When did you decide to make the switch? How did you think about the competitive set? How did you have to change your day-to-day operations? What was most challenging when you pivoted? How did you approach customer acquisition? How did you approach the experience 15-30% less than a dealership When did you decide to raise your first round? How were you able to raise? What were your objectives after you raised? Now lots of car companies have extended warranties for repair, how does that affect Nu Brakes? When did you decide to expand outside of Austin? What was your approach to hiring and getting people who had years and years of experience excited to work at Nu Brakes? How do you think about culture? Culture is a shared way of doing something w/ passion How did the pandemic affect your business? Did you have to make any pivots? What’s the mission and vision of Nu Brakes? What’s one thing you would change about VC? What’s one book the inspired you professionally and one book that inspired you personally? Six Tires, No Plan (Business) Extreme Ownership (Personal): What’s one piece of advice you have for founders?

Thank you Nagraj Kashyap for the introduction to our guest today Joe Kudla, founder and CEO of Vuori. Vuori is Performance Apparel Is Built To Move & Sweat In, Yet Styled For Everyday Life. We discuss why Joe wanted to start an athleisure wear brand, what his inspiration was, his approach to targeting specific customer personas and how he thinks about differentiation and scaling. I loved this conversation and learned alot from Joe. Without further ado, here he is. And there you have it. It was amazing chatting with Joe. I hope you all enjoyed listening and hearing Vuori’s story as much as I enjoyed talking with him. Questions I ask him: What inspired you to start a clothing brand? What was the insight and what type of brand did you want to build? What was your initial target market and how did you think about the marketing mix? How did you enter a space that was already highly fragmented/seemingly saturated and adequately differentiate Vuori in the customers’ eyes? Had a performance story How has the brand’s message evolved? How did you make sure you had an inclusive message where you focused on the southern California lifestyle? How did you think about specialized? Did you come from an apparel or design background? What were the first steps? How did you think about sourcing materials and design? How and when did you first launch? How did you think about retail and having a cohesive omnichannel strategy? What’s the ROI in retail? How do you think about the relationship retail to online/ecommerce? What’s also the split between men’s v women’s and how does that affect your business? How do you differentiate themselves in a marketplace with hundreds of competitors? How do you articulate yourselves vs. lululemon? You’ve mentioned how profitability has been a focus since almost day one and you’ve been profitable since 2017. How do you manage profitability vs growth? What are some of the key decisions you’ve made that lends itself to a greater focus on profitability? How do you approach scale? What has been the impact of COVID on Vuori? How do you think about launching new products When and why did you first fundraise? What has been your approach to fundraising?

Our guest today is John Foraker, co-founder and CEO of Once Upon a Farm. Fresh snacks with immune-boosting probiotics to keep your little one's wellness top of mind. For chilly season or any reason! Before John was the CEO of Annie’s Inc. We discuss his learnings running Annie’s for over a decade, how he became the CEO of Once Upon a Farm, what led Jennifer Garner to become a co-founder, what it’s like developing a new category, why they chose to expand to retail really fast. Without further ado, here’s John. Some of the questions I ask John: What was your initial attraction to natural foods and natural products? What were some of your learnings running Annie’s for nearly 20 years? What was the aha moment and led you to found Once Upon A Farm? What were the first steps after realizing this was something you wanted to pursue? How did you connect with Jennifer Garner and have her come on board? How do you build a brand in a new category? How did you approach building the supply chain? What has been the hardest parts of building Once Upon A Farm? How did you approach fundraising?What’s the biggest reason why a company passed on you? What’s the best thing that’s happened to the business?What’s the worst? How do you think about your positioning when you enter retail - natural grocery or conventional? How do you approach scale? What’s your fascination with NFTs? What’s one thing you would change about raising venture capital? What’s one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?Omnivore’s dilemma Ramping your brand by James Richardson What’s one piece of advice you have for founders?

Our guest is Brandon Yahn, co-founder and partner of Convivialité Ventures. Convivialite is Pernod Ricard’s venture arm, the second largest wine & spirits company in the world. Their focus is to invest in technology companies that are changing the way people socialize, entertain, and share experiences together. We discuss his approach to thematic investing, how he thinks about strategic and non-strategic investments, particular areas within consumer technology he’s fascinated by. Here’s some of the questions I ask him: What was your initial attraction to technology and innovation? How did you end up in San Francisco working in technology? What led you to founding your student debt company? How did you develop a relationship with Pernod Ricard? Why did they want to launch their own investment fund? How separate is the fund Pernod Ricard? Do investments need to be strategic or are they pure financial? Why do you have a focus on consumer technology (and technology in general) opposed to only beverage? How do you provide value to technology companies? What types of companies do you look for? What's your diligence process? What are some of the trends you are excited about in CPG? What's one thing you would change about VC? What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally? What's one piece of advice for entrepreneurs?

Our guest today is Avrum Elmakis, founder & CEO of CLMBR. CLMBR is an at-home the first vertical climber with a touch screen and on-demand, instructor-led classes. It’s a full body and one of the most efficient workouts you can do. We discuss how he became an entrepreneur, what led to founding CLMBR, how he was able to get Lebron James, Jay-Z and Novak Djokovic to invest and how he thinks about establishing new fitness habits. Without further ado, here’s Avrum. Here’s what I asked him: How did you get into climbing? What led you to founding CLMBR? What were the first steps you took? What was the moment when you were all-in? How did you build your product and get a prototype? Why did you decide to launch an indie gogo campaign?What was the initial response? How did you go about building your supply chain since this sounds like a complicated product? You launched during the pandemic in April 2020. Was the plan always to launch in April? Seems like the ideal timing to launch an at home fitness option?How did you approach distribution? What were sales like once you launched? What was user feedback? How did your recent fundraise come together? How did Jay-Z sign on? As the world opens up, how do you see the future of fitness and habits around working out? What's next on the horizon for CLMBR? What's one thing you would change about fundraising? What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally? What's one piece of advice that you have for founders? What's the best piece of advice that has stuck with you?