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

Our guest today is Jessica Peltz-Zatulove, co-founder and General Partner at Hannah Grey. Hannah Grey is a first check venture fund investing in founders reimagining everyday experiences to improve work and life which she co-founded with Kate Beardley, who also came on the show. We ask the question what are community driven brands, identity driven brands and how brands are engaging with Web3 and how to scale brands sustainably. Without further ado, Here’s Jessica. Questions I ask Jessica: What was your introduction to venture capital and your initial attraction to it? What was the transition like from corporate VC, specializing in investing in advertising technology startups to starting your own fund? Is New York the center for consumer investing? Where do you see the opportunity with consumer brands? What are some of the trends your paying close attention to? Investing in consumer brands is hard because a successful exit typically looks very different to a successful exit in technology. When you speak to entrepreneurs building consumer brands, how do you know that brand is actually venture backable vs. a lifestyle business?What are some of the characteristics?What do you want to see in the founder?Is it harder investing in a consumer business if you are not the target customer? Since you come from an advertising background, given you no longer have the arbitrage opportunities on FB and Google to scale, what are some of the creative ways you've seen companies scale that is sustainable? I know we're in the early innings of the metaverse and there's lots of excitement over different aspects to it. How do you map out the different parts to the metaverse and when investing where is the opportunity for venture like returns?How are you seeing the metaverse evolve over the next few years?What are some of the consumer behavior changes you are currently thinking about? As we come out of this COVID period, are you shifting your focus to any new verticals? What's one thing you would change about venture capital? What's one book that inspired you virtually and one book that inspired you professionally? What's one piece of advice for entrepreneurs? What's the best piece of advice you've received?

My guest today is Mike Ghaffary who is a partner at Canvas Ventures, a firm that specializes on leading Series A. Some of their investments include Flyhomes, Nubrakes, and Zola. This is Mike’s second time on Consumer VC and is our first second time guest. His first appearance we went deep on how to evaluate and invest in marketplace businesses. On this episode, we discuss what is the next big thing in consumer after the iPhone? Is it web3, metaverse, remote work applications or something completely different? Questions I ask Mike: When we spoke a couple of months ago, you mentioned how this is the perfect entrepreneurial landscape for B2B. What did you mean by that? We've now had the iPhone for 14 years, which has been the platform (coupled with android) for consumer technology. What are the options for the next consumer platform as you see it? Who are the candidates? There's lots of chatter about web 3 and how web 2 companies need to become web 3 companies in order to survive. What does that mean? What do you think about? If web 3 / blockchain technology does become the future, what has to also hold true or needs to happen? VR was hot a few years ago and then quickly crashed and burned. Now VR is back as an interesting market to VCs. What has changed? What do you make of Facebook changing to Meta and how do you believe the metaverse means?Is it going to be similar to the open web where you have companies that build parts to it but there is no one owner of it?I discussed with Rui Ma how in China, livestreaming is a very powerful way to market your brand and is a multi-billion acquisition channel but it only happened because Alibaba introduced it on Taobao and user adoption became widespread as a result. This is early, but with Facebook changing to Meta, are we in the beginnings of a similiar inflection point where one of the incumbents is going to make metaverse/VR technology more widespread as a result? When you think about the next paradigm shift as an investor since it's still uncertain, how then do you think about current opportunities?Is this why it's easier to stay in B2B currently until the next platform arrives? Meanwhile, we've also seen new consumer marketplace businesses that have been built that are the same business models from 10-15 years ago. Do you think new marketplace businesses can still be successful? Is there any theories of the next consumer technological shift you don't believe? Since you sit at Series A, since there is alot of excitement and high valuations, do you ever consider going earlier What was your favorite book that you read this past year? What's one piece of advice for consumer founders during these times?

My guest today is Tushar Garg, co-founder and CEO of Flyhomes. Their mission is to build the world’s best home buying experience. We discussed how Tushar got into real estate and why he saw not much innovation on the buy side when you’re thinking about a new home, their approach to growth and raising capital and how they look at new markets to enter. We discuss: Why did you want to become an entrepreneur? Why did you decide to focus on Real Estate? What were the inefficiencies? What's the founding journey and the insight that led to FlyHomes? What was your first market and how did you decide on it? When did you decide to raise capital?What was the biggest hangup from investors? What was missing from the Real Estate Transaction? How do you choose which market to expand in? What makes a compelling market to you? What has been the effect of the pandemic on real estate and FlyHomes? What were some of the early mistakes you made as a founder? 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 one piece of advice that you have for founders?

My guest today is Steve Hughes, founder of Sunrise Strategic Partners. Sunrise Strategic Partners provides growth capital and expertise to emerging brands in the healthy, active and sustainable living space. Some of their investments include Cali’flour foods, Kodiak Cakes, and Maple Hill Creamery. We discuss the current SPAC market, the history of the natural foods movement, and transitioning from a digitally native brand to becoming an omnichannel brand. Here are the questions I ask him: What was your initial attraction to the food industry? Why did you decide to focus on natural / organic foods? How did you start Boulder Brands? Did a SPAC in 2005, Boulder Brands How do you view SPAC market today? Why did you want to start Strategic Sunrise your own private equity shop? Diligence process - What is brand authenticity to you? What is your sweet spot when it comes to sales? Has to be a big category How do you think about strategics? Is there a particular sector your not bullish on that other investors are bullish on? What's the current landscape for strategics? How has the tide shifted in the past few years? Where do you fall with profitability vs. growth? How do assess a company that is built for digital and hasn't gone into store yet? What were some of your learnings through COVID? 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?

Thank you Deb Benton for introducing me to our guest today Nisha Dua , co-founder and General Partner at BBG Ventures . BBG Ventures is an early-stage fund backing big ideas that will reshape the way we live. One of the first episodes of this podcast was with Susan Lyne, who is the other co-founder of BBG and Susan graciously accepted to come on the show without knowing who I was when the podcast hadn't even been released yet so I am VERY grateful to the BBG. Some of their investments include Zola, Blueland, Real, and Zero Grocery. Nisha and I discuss the opportunities within health and wellness, climate friendly consumption, and solving problems for the 99%. Some of the questions I ask her: What was your initial attraction to venture capital? How did you meet Susan Lyne? How did BBG Ventures come together? What are some of your themes or areas of focus? How do you evaluate founders and teams? What are characteristics about consumers that might be nuanced or not everyone understands? What are the proof points? How do you think about price in this current market? How do you think about your role as an investor? Has COVID changed any of your thoughts on your investment themes? How do you think about price in the market Consumption change FOMO timelines and price What's one thing you would change about venture capital? I know there are no silver What has been your lowest moment in your journey and how did you get out of it? What's one book that inspired you professionally and one book that inspired you personally? What's one piece of advice that you have for founders?

My guest today is Ben Sun, co-founder and general partner at Primary Venture Partners. Primary focuses on investing in companies at seed that were founded in New York and has the largest seed stage portfolio impact team. Some of his investment include Jet.com, Coupang, K Health and Mirror. Previously he co-founded community connect, which was one of the first social networking companies. We discuss the evolution of social, why he's so bullish of companies coming out of New York, being anti thesis and a macro analysis of the current seed market. Questions I ask Ben: What was your initial attraction to entrepreneurship? How did you go about founding Community Connect? What made you decide to become a VC? How did Primary come together? What was your reaction then to Facebook starting off in high school I understand you invest in New York companies, which we will get to, but how did you end up investing in Coupang? Why the focus on New York? How has Silicon Alley transformed in the past 15 years? Why seed investing? New York City Summit? Process to figure out if a person could be the right founder? How do you approach this current market when it comes to price? It seems like lots of VCs are building out services and a platform for portfolio founders. How do you think about Primary's advantage when it comes to your own platform? Are you finding that many investors that traditionally invest in Series A or when a company has PMF are coming down to seed? I know you are an anti-thesis investor, would you mind unpacking that? How do you process and analyze when founders pitch ideas to you? Has any of your processes changed when it came to COVID? 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 founders?

Presenter: Burkland Associates helps you build the right systems that can keep up with your growth and can handle all the finance, accounting, tax and hiring services that consumer startups need to scale. For more information head to burklandassociates.com Presenter: Skillful runs online, immersive programs that help people launch and accelerate their careers in business roles in tech - Strategy & Ops, Product, Strategic Finance and Growth. Early bird applications for the Core Sprint are now open - use the exclusive code EARLYBIRD2021 if you apply before Dec 1 Click Here to Apply to the Next Cohort   Our guest today is Brett Thomas co-founder of CAVU Venture Partners. CAVU Venture Partners builds brands for a healthier world. Some of their investments include WHOOP, Poppi, and Once Upon a Farm. We chat about his transition from hedge funds and the public markets to early stage companies, how his introduction helping companies was getting on billboards and the impact of that channel and how he came to found CAVU. Without further ado, here's Brett. In this episode you will learn: What was your initial attraction to consumer brands? How did you end up at Scout Capital? How did CAVU come together? What's the differentiation at CAVU? When do you typically get involved in startups? Should startups pay more attention to offline What were you learnings from COVID When does it make sense to go to retailHow do you find where the consumer is going How do you get to conviction within a company? How do you think about brand? What makes a compelling brand? What's the main reason why you pass? How do you think about product differentiation? When does it make sense for companies to start omnichannel from the beginning? How should a company think about their channel marketing mix? What's a successful marketing campaign to you? What's one thing you would change about venture capital within consumer? What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally? Steven Schwartzman - What It Takes What's one piece of advice for founders?

Presenter: Burkland Associates helps you build the right systems that can keep up with your growth and can handle all the finance, accounting, tax and hiring services that consumer startups need to scale. For more information head to burklandassociates.com Presenter: Skillful runs online, immersive programs that help people launch and accelerate their careers in business roles in tech - Strategy & Ops, Product, Strategic Finance and Growth. Early bird applications for the Core Sprint are now open - use the exclusive code EARLYBIRD2021 if you apply before Dec 1 Click Here to Apply to the Next Cohort This is a recap episode of my conversation with Sarah LaFleur, Founder & CEO of M.M. LaFleur.

Presenter: Burkland Associates helps you build the right systems that can keep up with your growth and can handle all the finance, accounting, tax and hiring services that consumer startups need to scale. For more information head to burklandassociates.com Presenter: Skillful runs online, immersive programs that help people launch and accelerate their careers in business roles in tech - Strategy & Ops, Product, Strategic Finance and Growth. Early bird applications for the Core Sprint are now open - use the exclusive code EARLYBIRD2021 if you apply before Dec 1 Click Here to Apply to the Next Cohort This is a highlight episode of my conversation with Madeline Haydon, founder & CEO of nut pods.

Presenter: Burkland Associates helps you build the right systems that can keep up with your growth and can handle all the finance, accounting, tax and hiring services that consumer startups need to scale. For more information head to burklandassociates.com Presenter: Skillful runs online, immersive programs that help people launch and accelerate their careers in business roles in tech - Strategy & Ops, Product, Strategic Finance and Growth. Early bird applications for the Core Sprint are now open - use the exclusive code EARLYBIRD2021 if you apply before Dec 1 Click Here to Apply to the Next Cohort This is a highlight from my conversation with Jeremy Cai, Founder & CEO of Italic