Mike Gelb

Consumer VC

Business EN ↓ 411 episodes

Consumer VC takes a look into early-stage consumer investing and venture capital. If you are interested in learning about consumer trends, have a b2c business and interested in learning about the fundraising process at the early stage, you have come to the right place. Mike interviews some of the top venture capitalists in the world that focus on B2C and consumer type companies or have a deep track record investing in these categories such as marketplaces, SaaS, social, CPG and non-tech subscription. Mike also interviews founders that are building some of the most disruptive consumer facing co...

Author

Mike Gelb

Episodes

Mike Duboe (Greylock) - Learnings as Head of Growth at Stitch Fix & Tilt, The Importance of Saying No, and Analyzing Health of Acquisition 16.12.2019 35:06

Mike Duboe joined Greylock Partners in 2018 and leads investments in commerce, marketplaces, and consumer more broadly. Previously, he led growth at Stitch Fix , Tilt , and others and has created, scaled, led growth teams from Series A through IPO across a span of businesses. Greylock Partners is one of the oldest venture capital firms, founded in 1965. Some of their investments include Facebook ,...

David Wu (Maveron) - The Reinvention of Entertainment, The Founder Scorecard, and the Lessons Learned From Building a Houseboat and Cruising Down the Mississippi 12.12.2019 42:55

David Wu is a Partner at Maveron . Maveron is a premier consumer-focused fund that invests in seed and Series A companies that empower consumers to live on their terms. Some of Maveron’s investments include Allbirds , General Assembly , eBay , and Coursehero . David joined Maveron to help identify new investments in emerging direct-to-consumer brands – especially those in the hardware and tech cat...

Rick Heitzmann (FirstMark Capital) - The Future of Marketplaces, Why investing in B2C companies is different to B2B companies, Investing in Secondary and Tertiary Markets 09.12.2019 34:46

Rick Heitzmann is a founder and partner of FirstMark Capital and focuses on consumer and enterprise investments. Rick has led investments in market leaders such as Pinterest , StubHub (acquired by eBay), Riot Games (acquired by Tencent ), Airbnb , Shopify and much more. Prior to founding FirstMark, Rick was an entrepreneur including being a founding member of the senior management team at First Ad...

Susan Lyne (BBG Ventures) - Why Investing in Women Founders is Still an Untapped Market 05.12.2019 33:23

Susan Lyne is the co-founder and Managing Partner of BBG Ventures , a fund that invests in visionary entrepreneurs building the next generation of market-defining consumer products and services. Every company in their portfolio has at least one female founder. Some of their investments include Zola , Blueland , Beautycon , and NextGenVest (acq. by CommonBond ) Susan began her career in the magazin...

Caitlin Strandberg (Lerer Hippeau) - How To Identify Consumer Pain Points, The D2C Investment Landscape, and The New York Ecosystem 02.12.2019 21:07

Caitlin Strandberg is a Principal at Lerer Hippeau , the most active early-stage venture capital fund in New York. The firm has more than 250 active portfolio companies with investments in leading consumer and enterprise companies, including Allbirds , Casper , Guideline , and K Health . Lerer Hippeau invests across all sectors, backing founders with product vision, customer insight, and a keen in...

Ajay Kamat (Pear VC) - Clarity of Thought, Future of Audio, and Today's Investing Landscape 26.11.2019 28:03

Ajay Kamat is a Partner at Pear , one of the premier early stage venture capital funds in Silicon Valley. Prior to Pear, Ajay founded Wedding Party , which was acquired by Instacart . Pear was founded by Mar Hershenson and Pejman Nozad , who were early investors in Dropbox , Lending Club , Zoosk , Addepar , Path and many others. Some of Pear's notable investments include DoorDash , Philz Coffee ,...

Amit Mukherjee (NEA) - The Gen Z Consumer, How to Evaluate Two Different Competing Companies 19.11.2019 27:01

Amit Mukherjee is a Partner at New Enterprise Associates (NEA) , one of the premier and global venture capital firms that invests in all stages. Amit focuses on investing in consumer technology. He is a Board Observer for Casper , MasterClass , Brandless , and The Players’ Tribune , and was previously a Board Observer for Jet.com . Amit has led a number of seed stage investments for NEA, including...

Nicole Quinn (Lightspeed Venture Partners) - Future of Media, Investing in Women, and Thinking Big 12.11.2019 28:17

Nicole Quinn is a partner and investor at Lightspeed Venture Capital, a venture capital firm that is engaged in the consumer, enterprise, technology, and cleantech markets. Some of Nicole's investments include Calm, Goop, Rothy’s, Cameo, Brandable, Girlboss, Illumix, Zola, Daily Harvest & Lady Gaga’s Haus Labs. You can follow Nicole Here on Twitter. If you would like to follow your host, Mike,...

Hayden Williams (BrandProject) - Empathy, Investing in Smoothies, and the Fickle Consumer 05.11.2019 31:12

Hayden Williams is a Partner of Investments at Brand Project , a venture capital fund that focuses on consumer investments at the early stage. Brand Project is hyper-focused on adding their operational value to founders as the team collectively has launched 100 new products and services for some of the most iconic companies. Hayden joined Brand Project this year and previously was an investor at B...

Jay Kapoor (Launch Capital) - Persistence, Building Trust & Finding Founder-Market Fit 30.10.2019 42:22

Jay is a Principal at Launch Capital, one of the pioneers of seed-stage investing firms. They often write the check to startups that they invest in. Some of their big consumer wins include Spotify and Snap. Jay has worked at Launch since 2018 and also has experience working in corporate VC and Techstars. He's written some great articles and thought-provoking Twitter updates on venture capital and...

0. Why The Consumer VC 22.10.2019 4:58

This is an introductory episode explaining what will be covered and the goals for this podcast "The Consumer VC". For this episode, I recruited my brother Rob Gelb to interview yours truly about the podcast, the range of topics I hope to cover in the coming interview episodes in this podcast. For more information about this podcast, please check out our site or follow on Twitter .