Building Consumer Brands and Platforms in 2021. Shaping our future.
The VCs conversation and QA with FaB founders👋
As it can be frustrating on Clubhouse, not only for android users not to be able to attend, but also for busy founders & parents as an early time PST conversation (to make it live EST and in Europe), here are the take-away. Thank you 🙏 to the 60 founders attending and the great questions. We thank our friends and iconic VCs, fab guest speakers for their valuable insights and advice to the founders in D2C in early stage. Grateful for Gabriella being an awesome moderator! (a post curated by Odile Roujol).
Gabriella Cambanis Cassius Family (LA) moderator,Sarah Foley, Swat Equity Partners (NYC), Henri Deshays, New Fund (SF), Alexa Binns, Halogen VC (LA), Cristina Nunez, True Beauty Ventures (NYC), Claire Chang, igniteXL Ventures (SF), Lauren Rinkey, Vital Ventures (Austin), Odile Roujol, Fab community, and Fab Ventures (LA/SF) hosting.
Consumer trend: sustainability 💙🌱, circularity ♻️, women wellness, self-care.
“A new generation of fashion creators and buyers has already emerged, and most brands are playing catch-up with new behaviors (circular economy, micro-sellers) or distribution (headless commerce, drops). What a great time to be part of this industry!” Henri
“There is a much needed de-stigmatization trend happening within areas of personal and mental health making access to, education about, and community support around products and services a better experience for consumers.”
“Exciting to meet female founders building companies in the Feminine wellness, helping women managing their health.” Sarah
Founders : building bridges, love your customers, community and brand first.✨✨💪
“We all work in remote. We Invest in founders in Zoom! Based in Austin and having my LPs in Australia, it’s exciting to talk to founders in many different cities”. Lauren
“We look for founders leading brands consumers can’t live without, before they know they can’t live without them.” Sarah
“Fall in love with your customers and get to know them intimately. That’s how you build a brand that your consumers would love.” Claire
“We love brands. Brands that earn relevancy in people’s lives and ultimately shape culture. Brands that are built on strong and loyal communities. The only way to build sustainable businesses.” Gabriella
”When investing, we first choose the Founding team, and we check the capacity of the founders to deal with “the crappyness”, test things, iterate, avoiding as much as they can paid organic acquisition.” Henri
“The path to growth and success is certainly paved with mistakes. Just try to make tactical mistakes not strategic ones. You can come back from tactical mistakes as they affect today. Strategic ones, on the other hand, will impact way past tomorrow. “
“Talent — I cannot stress the importance in beauty of building teams that reflect the diverse needs, wants, and desires of the consumers they serve. Strategically and financially, it will deliver the best outcomes.” Cristina
“Know your competition, show your KPIs if talking to VCs.” Alexa
Fundings: Network! Do your due diligence, VCs are one great path but there are others.🤝
“For the fundings, there is so much capital, there is speed in what’s going on.” Lauren
“Funding — I am looking for the full package in the founders we choose to back. A leader who is a brand, creative visionary as well as a strong, disciplined operator. The new cohort of founder we see in beauty today Is both.”
“Advice when connecting with VCs: due your diligence, stage and thesis of investment to save your time and their time.” Cristina
“Founders having already raised can give you great advice and warm introductions, prep conversations can help.” Gabriella, Cristina and Henri
“Understand that your second full-time job is fundraising — always be networking.” Sarah
“If in conversation with Series A investors, “try to think of your end game”.
“Venture capital is one great path to grow your business. But it’s not the only option. If you’re in the business of making goods, debt financing is your friend.” Alexa
Advice for growth: Organic first. Focus on distribution strategy. 📈🛍
“Best tool at the moment? Texts with an opt in, for growing a community, and taking care of your customers.” Alexa
“Don’t pay growth by FB and Google! The stronger the word of mouth, the organic growth, the better. Focus on the experience and the brand. You need to “Cut through the noise”.” Henri
“Build an engaged community.” And “You need to have a deep knowledge of your customer base.” Claire
“You must have different channels. It’s important to think of your distribution, retailers partnerships, brick and mortar and not only D2C if you want to scale.” Sarah
“+1! Your community, then your distribution.” Lauren
Bio Short Bios of guest speakers and VCs:
Sarah Foley runs SWAT Equity Partners, a VC firm supporting transformative consumer brands. The firm has over 80 years of experience in branding building, investing in and operating companies — offering the full toolkit to identify and nurture early stage companies.
Gabriella Cambanis is an investor at CASSIUS Family alongside Emmanuel Seuge. Cassius is a Seed and Series A Venture Fund focused on Consumer, Content and Commerce. Prior to Cassius, Gabriella spent 5 years in Asset Management and Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs and Rothschild respectively, and a year as first-hire and operator at Evereden, a personal care startup.
Henri Deshays is partner @ Newfund, a cross-border Europe-US seed stage venture fund. Prior to Newfund, Henri was founding member @ StartX, Stanford’s accelerator, and co-founder @ ModeWalk, a fashion marketplace sold to Moda Operandi.
Cristina Nuñez Co-Founder & Partner, True Beauty Ventures, an emerging growth fund focused on finding, partnering with, and scaling brands exclusively in beauty, personal care, and wellness, she lives between NYC and Miami. Prior to launching True Beauty Ventures, she spent half of her career as an operator in beauty and wellness.
Alexa Binns is a Principal at Halogen Ventures, Jesse Draper’s VC fund investing in the top female founders. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford and has her MBA from UCLA where she wrote her master thesis on how to build a brand on YouTube.
Lauren Rinkey is the Managing Partner of Vital Ventures, a consumer-centric investor with a passion for health, wellness, lifestyle and culture, community, sustainability and impact. She’s on a mission to get more women on the cap tables of the most promising consumer businesses
Claire Chang is Founding Partner at igniteXL Ventures, Silicon Valley based global beauty & wellness tech fund. Claire is Korean American, leads Korea chapter at FAB and loves working with passionate founders finding solutions to help us be beautiful and healthy inside out.
Odile, Founder of the Fashion & @BeautyTech community (7000 founders & funders, 15 chapters US Lat Am Europe and Asia) and Founding Partner of FAB Co-Creation Studio Ventures, Direct-to-Consumer focus, early stage. Conscious Fashion and Beauty.
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Next Clubhouse in April: 2nd Clean Beauty Brands, 15 Fab and the Colors, the conversation with Black Founders, 22 Science of Beauty Collective, and May 5 Beauty and radical transparency (now on Eventbrite). Dubai London, European webinar to be soon published.
