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

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Thank you Susan Lyne for the introduction to our guest today, Andy Dunn, the founder of Bonobos. Bonobos was one of the first digitally native brands to exist. They eventually sold to Walmart for over $300 million. In this episode, Andy shares the founding journey of Bonobos, how he thinks about the current state of digitally native brands and a clue about what he's up to next. Without further ado, here's Andy.

Some of the questions I ask Andy:

1. What was your initial attraction to entrepreneurship?
2. You started Bonobos at Stanford. How did you meet your co-founder Brian Spaly?
3. Did you have other business ideas? How did you land on pants? What was the insight?
4. What was the customer feedback?
5. What was first step for testing out this idea?
6. Why did you decide to move the business to New York instead of staying the bay have access to tech talent?
7. How did you find your first customers and gain early momentum?
8. We talk on this podcast about doing things that don't scale in the early days. What were some of the activities you did that wouldn't have scaled?
9. When did you decide to sell online?
10. When did you decide to raise capital? Who was your first investor?
11. What are the aspects of Bonobos that resonated with them?
12. Who was your target customer?
13. How were you able to get to your customer?
14. Why did you decide to move the company to New York?
15. Why weren't you ready for a Series A?
16. Was it hard to recruit tech talent in New York?
17. How did you approach hiring? How were you able to attract talent?
18. How did you build culture?
19. How did you approach growth vs. profitability? When did you decide (if you decided) to focus on profitability?
20. Didn't know how to build the tech stack?
21. How did you approach hiring tech talent?
22. When and how did you develop the concept for guideshops? What was your omnichannel strategy?
23. What was your approach to leadership?
24. When and how did you develop the concept for guideshops? What was your omnichannel strategy?
25. When was the moment when you knew the trajectory of Bonobos was looking good?
26. What was your approach to leadership?
27. When did you decide to do paid marketing?
28. What were some of the challenges and trials you had to face while you were building Bonobos?
29. What were some of the mistakes that you made during Bonobos?
30. What was the process like selling to Walmart?
31. I know you also invest as well. How do you describe the current landscape of DNVBs?How do you evaluate brands and founders?
32. What's one thing you would change about the fundraising process?
33. What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?
34. What's one piece of advice that you have

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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:

1. What was your initial attraction to consumer brands?
2. How did you end up at Scout Capital?
3. How did CAVU come together?
4. What's the differentiation at CAVU?
5. When do you typically get involved in startups?
6. Should startups pay more attention to offline
7. What were you learnings from COVID
8. When does it make sense to go to retailHow do you find where the consumer is going
9. How do you get to conviction within a company?
10. How do you think about brand? What makes a compelling brand?
11. What's the main reason why you pass?
12. How do you think about product differentiation?
13. When does it make sense for companies to start omnichannel from the beginning?
14. How should a company think about their channel marketing mix?
15. What's a successful marketing campaign to you?
16. What's one thing you would change about venture capital within consumer?
17. What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally? Steven Schwartzman - What It Takes
18. What's one piece of advice for founders?

Our guest today is Anthony Zhang, founder of Vinovest. Vinovest allows you to invest in Wine Globally Without Leaving Home and Without Storing It Yourself. He also previously founded EnjoyNow and Know your VC. We discuss his introduction to entrepreneurship, what it was like coming back from a spinal injury to guide EnjoyNow to a successful exit, why he started Vinovest, how people were investing in wine previously, and much much more.

We discuss:

1. When was the first moment you were entrepreneurial?
2. You founded EnvoyNow, Know Your VC and now Vinovest. What do you feel like is the thread that combines each of those experiences.
3. In 2016 you suffered a huge accident and became paralyzed. This was while you were CEO of EnvoyNow and had to take a step back. You realized that your co-founders wanted to leave and the company wasn’t doing well. Walk me through what it was like coming back to your company day to day and still want EnvoyNow to be successful even though it was falling apart?
4. Why Vinovest? Why wine as an asset class? Were you always into wine?
5. How were people investing in wine previously?
6. What were your first steps when founding? How did you build the market?
7. How profitable is wine as an alternative investment?
8. How does it work?
9. What’s the level of demand for a platform like Vinovest? When did you feel like there was a significant demand for this product?
10. The wine is eventually is going to go bad / there’s an expiry date. How do you deal with this?
11. Who are they finally selling to?
12. When did you start Whiskey Vest?
13. Are you worried about the non-alc craze?
14. How do wine producers benefit?
15. Are their alternative assets that you don’t think make sense?
16. How did you raise capital?
17. What’s one book that’s inspired you personally and professionally
18. Six Types of Working Geniuses
19. 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership

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My guest today is Robin Li, Principal at GGV Capital. GGV is a global venture capital fund that invests in seed to growth stage companies. Some of their companies include Airbnb, Poshmark, Alibaba, and Peloton. We discuss how GGV makes decisions on a global scale, what opportunities in consumer internet Robin is most focused on, and bringing small businesses online.

You can follow Robin on Twitter @robin_p_li

Some of the questions I ask Robin -

1. What attracted you to venture capital and how did you wind up at GGV?
2. When it comes to evaluating early stage consumer companies, what are some of the elements you look for that are positive signs that there is traction and how do you evaluate companies when you have to make decisions very quickly?
3. Are there metrics that you focus on that might often be overlooked by founders?
4. What are some major turn offs or deal breakers from startups when they pitch their business to you?
5. In the due diligence process, how do you assess if the product is solving a real problem?
6. What are current trends that you are focused on?
7. What have been changes in consumer behavior during COVID that you are most surprised by?
8. What are some of the challenges when it comes to evaluating consumer startups?
9. How has consumer technology and ecommerce evolved differently in China vs. the United States?
10. I know that GGV invests in both the U.S. and China. In ecommerce, retail and social media China is far ahead of the United States with technology. What do you see as consumer technology that exists in China and that will crossover to the U.S.? What consumer technology won’t cross over?
11. What are some of the key differences between the Chinese consumer and the American consumer relating to internet behavior?
12. Communities - Chief - have over three thousand women, connecting Fishbone around professional communities
13. Round sizes have increased dramatically over the past few years with huge funds into venture capital. Now we have pre-seed, mico funds. How has this influenced you as an investor?
14. What are some consumer trends that you are excited about?
15. What is one company that you recently invested in or worked with that you are excited about?
16. What is one company that you should have invested in but didn’t?
17. What is one piece of advice that you have for founders of b2c companies that are looking to raise capital?

Thank you Carlton Fowler for the introduction to today's guests Brandon Schwartz and Lawrence Cisneros, co-founders of DRNXMYTH. DRNXMYTH Makes The Best Cocktails Ever Bottled. I have to say, these are amazing. I tried the product a few weeks ago and think what they are building with DRNXMYTH is very innovative and I hope you'll see that as well. We discuss their origin story of how they created this amazing bottle for cocktails, how their business is becoming a marketplace, how they think about collaborations.

A couple of books that inspired Brandon and Lawrence:

Zero to One by Peter Thiel

Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Klyosakl

The questions I ask Brandon and Lawrence:

1. Let's start from the beginning. How did you two meet and become interested in the alcohol and beverage industries?
2. What was the insight or pain point that you wanted to solve that led to the founding of Drnxmyth come together?
3. When you started realized
4. How did you develop the technology and your supply chain?
5. What were some of the early hurdles?
6. How did you think about brand and brand positioning?
7. Lunchables
8. Pancakes
9. How were you able to validate your idea?
10. What was some of the early growth levers you used and your approach to retail and ecommerce?
11. How were you able to pivot during COVID?
12. What was your approach to fundraising?
13. What was the biggest hang up from investors when they were evaluating your business?
14. How did you approach building community with Drnxmyth?
15. How did you think about flavors and creating different cocktails?
16. Do you plan on creating your own hard alcohols?
17. What's one thing you would change about the fundraising process?
18. What's one piece of advice that you have for founders currently building?