Adam Torres, Allen Finkelstein, Bob Meers and Charlie Hanna discuss Ecomm.
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Show Notes:
Listen to the Mission Matters Future of Ecomm and Product Growth Summit coverage.In this episode, Adam Torres interviews. Allen Finkelstein is the CEO and Founder of The Anecdote Group, Bob Meers, CEO of Better for All, Charlie Hanna is a Principal at Marcy Venture Partners (MVP), explore trends in Ecomm and Product Growth.
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Full Unedited Transcript
Yeah, this is a lot of fun. Chirag putting this together, the whole team that put this together. I mean, this is we’ve done, I don’t even know, but we’ll probably do 50 events this year and a minimum Chirag keeps us pretty busy and each event is different and unique and we cover many, many different niches.
And today I’m pretty excited to get into e comm. I’m excited to get into product. We have some individuals on stage, which are going to be a wealth of knowledge. And when I get ready to do it, and interview or when I get ready to host a panel, like secretly, I’m just trying to get information. Like I’m sitting here thinking about like, wow, I have these rock stars on stage.
How do I get info? How do I get, how do me and Sherrod get some free consulting? So that’s what we’re here to do and we’re gonna get some consulting as well for the, for the audience. Just so you know the way that this is structured is I’m gonna get us warmed up. Like I’m gonna ask some questions but this isn’t gonna be your typical panel where you’re just sitting there watching the people.
I’m going to get us started. I’m going to get us going. But then ultimately we want you to participate too. So this is going to be a large fireside chat, let’s say. But as you’re, as you’re listening to the conversation, as you have questions arising, like get ready to raise your hands. I’ll give a last question warning and let you know when I’m going to open it up for questions as well.
So then after I give that warning and I want to see those hands come up with the first question and we’re going to have some fun with this. Alright. Alright. This is a little attorney chair. This is a whole lot for me today. I’m in. So we’ll start off with if we can have each one of the panelists just maybe introduce yourselves and just a little bit about your background, history, and the current company that you’re working on as well.
Let’s start there. Okay. Hello. So, I’m Bob Mears. Obviously I’ve been in business a few years. My background is predominantly in the. In the athletic industry with one of the early founders and former CEO of Reebok during its high growth years with the aerobic shoes and the pump and Shaq and Alan Iverson and all of that.
And then most recently with Lululemon, where we were able to take a Canadian company and who had a nice little pair of yoga pants and Be able to expand it, bring it into the United States eventually internationally and both companies we took public. With Reebok, not only do we have Reebok, we did a lot of M& A with Rockport, the Greg Norman shark line.
We bought a VLSA had about five or 600 retail stores. I could go on and on. What I’m doing now is with my family. We wanted to get into the zero. We wanted to figure out if we could take the same attributes that make great athletic product, where the function is the fashion, and find a product that could be reused but when you disposed of it in any way, shape, or form, it would literally leave no footprint in a very short period of time.
And it would be not depleting at all. We decided to do a cup and do a series of cups because we saw people trying to both with government support take on the single use water bottle. We saw them trying to take on bags and packaging, but we saw the Red Solo Cup riding free. And we thought, you know what?
Let’s go after that one. And that’s what I’m doing now. Awesome. Thank you, Bob. All right. Amazing thank you so much. My name is Charlie Hanna. My goal is to invest in the next one of Bob’s businesses. No, but I’m an investor at Marcy Venture Partners. We are a consumer and culture and positive impact venture capital firm co founded by Jay Z, Jay Brown, and Larry Marcus.
Back in 2019, I’ve been with the fund since inception. We’re looking to invest in the best consumer. So we’re facing businesses mostly at that series A, series B stage. So businesses between 10 and 50 million of revenue growing very quickly with profound product market fit and strong customer love.
We’re across the consumer subsector, across beauty, fashion, health and wellness, food and beverage, all the manners of consumer goods and consumer services, but everything has really strong growth, appeal to younger demographics and positive impact. Values like inclusivity, accessibility, sustainability, health and wellness and multiculturalism.
We are a majority black owned BC and through a merger that we’re about to announce and initiate, we’ll be the, probably the largest black owned BC in the country with about a billion under management. You know, as we look towards the future, we look for companies with high repeat purchase rates with, you know, that are moving culturally.
And we think that through our investments, we can actually create culture with the partners that we’re, that we’re working with and the founders that we have the privilege of backing. So with that, thank you for hosting, thank you for hosting Interrog, thanks for inviting us here. Thank you.
Awesome. Alan. Hey. So Alan Papelstein again. My background is, went to law school, I have a legal background, after law school, was an executive at a color cosmetics company. There was build out the different departments and different teams. One of the teams was the marketing teams. And at the time Preston was someone that my partner now that I brought on to help with growth.
We saw all the value that we were bringing to the company and we decided, Hey, you know what? We can do this for a lot of different brands and companies. So it’s not a branch off, started that agency and now we work in the CPG space. Brands come to us and they say. Hey, this is where we’re at. This is where we want to go.
Can you help us? And we do that by running ads. We’re a growth marketing agency. We’re a meta business partner. We’re a Tik TOK, a partner agency. And ultimately what that means is spend a lot of money on the platform and we’ve helped a lot of brands and our bread and butter with clients that we work with are again, 20 to 80 million a year in revenue.
And they come to us. Awesome. Thank you. All right. First, first question for Bob. So Bob. As I was doing my little research getting ready for this as the story goes, or at least what I read, was that you originally maybe read a book and that was part of the inspiration for this idea behind, maybe not the company, but behind solving the problem of single use plastic.
I guess the first thing I want to ask you is, like, how did you get the idea? Am I off on that or, like, how’d that come up? Yeah, my daughter, Ray. My wife’s daughter, Reagan, my daughter Reagan Kelly gave me a book William McDonough. Excuse me. And it was Cradle to Cradle. And the book was kind of an epiphany because with every business at the beginning of the year, you sit down and you take a look at how can I run this business better.
How do I become more efficient? How do I become more streamlined? Do I have the right people in the right seats? Can I reduce this? Can I accent that? Etcetera. McDonough said, you shouldn’t be looking at reducing waste, you should be looking at eliminating waste and turning it into revenue. And I was, at the time, we had just entered Little Lemon.
And we were offering free hemming. And we loved the free hemming because it would bring somebody back into the store. And 80 percent of the time they buy something else. Well, we had all of the hemp And I thought well, why what are we doing with that? We’re throwing it away turned it into a headband and Now we make headbands So what I what I looked at when it came to the business we’re in now was I hear a lot about sustainability reduce waste And it’s not getting at the problem.
It really isn’t. It’s kind of like circling the drain, but the real opportunity is, can you, in fact, find a material that can be reused, that can create literally zero waste in a reasonable amount of time in any environment, and then can you make a product that people can have fun with? And that’s what led us to, so the.
Got me into the sustainability business as a gift, the opportunity to go find that material and create a product that you can go have a beautiful drink with and and not leave a footprint when it was all gone and that’s how it is. And just one follow up to that one. So how did, I mean, lots of different things you could have done you, I mean, with your experience, whether it was Reebok, Lululemon, I mean, you’ve literally taken companies into, you know, multi billion dollar companies in growth.
How did you know that this was going to be something that was going to be like your next big idea? Something that you were going to spend a significant amount of your time on? Yeah. Okay. Can, can, am I doing it better now? A little closer? Oh, okay. Fine. So let me, let me, let me put it this way. Yeah, I could sit on boards.
I could, I could, I could do another version of what I’ve done. Yes. And to be honest with you, it didn’t hold any juice. And the question was, how do you, Keep your mind engaged. How do you give back? How do you create a difference and make a difference? When you When when you’re not trying to build your resume, yeah, and and so consequently when the idea came that we could in fact not make a package that people tore away to get at what they bought or that they could, you know, make something that would last for a little while.
The opportunity to make something that literally hadn’t been made before, that carried the juice for me and my wife. So, you know, we said, you know, if we’re going to take this bigger risk, we better fund it ourselves. You know, we’re going to lose a lot of friends if we’re wrong. So amazing Charlie.
So MVP Marcy Venture Partners known for a lot of things. Culture impact investing. You mentioned a little bit in the, maybe the series that you’re investing. I’d be interested to hear a little bit more. So you said a B early. I’d be interested to hear a little bit more about what goes into your decision when it comes to a founder.
A lot of founders. What kind of things go into like, I don’t know if I’d use the word vetting, but just making sure that that founder, that company are aligned with your overall investment thesis. Yeah, that’s a great question. So I’ll, I’ll start with providing a little more color on, on what our investment strategy is and then we can dive into the founders.
So we’re, we’re, we’re writing checks between five and 15 million and targeting double digit percent ownership of companies. So 10 to 20%, these are minorities. Investments were investing right at that place before private equity comes in or strategic acquisition happens with these companies. We think there’s a lot of value there.
These businesses are either profitable or will become profitable on existing cash. Generally, they’re growing very quickly, so 50 to 100 percent growth year over year. They have you know, strong metrics through and product market fit as witnessed by a built in community. You know, look at something like Lululemon, talk about a community and a morality with the product where people are telling other people about it.
People are wearing it in the gym and then they’re saying, Hey, how do you look that good? You know, buy Lulu. That’s the kind of flywheel and appeal to younger demographics that we would look for. And when it comes to the founder for us I mentioned product market fit with the founder, it’s about founder market So we were fortunate enough to invest recently in a, in a business called RebelStork.
RebelStork is a marketplace selling post purchase returned inventory, specifically in baby gear. So I was fortunate enough to have a baby 15 months ago, and my wife’s willingness to pay for new baby gear is essentially infinite, right? She buys all this gear, and you use half of it. And then the rest of it just sits in the garage collecting dust.
So any of you, who has kids, just so I can get a sense from it. Okay, so you know this experience. You mentioned something about, I’m going to ask this very open ended because you dropped it, so a possible acquisition, merger, otherwise, going to give you scale, what can you tell us that you can say right now that will take you to that billion dollars?
Oh yeah. Again, not putting you in a corner, but No, no, absolutely. It’s this was on Bloomberg a few weeks ago. We are fortunate enough to have The opportunity to merge with a group called Pendulum Capital Partners, Pendulum Holdings, which is founded by Robby Robinson and Dorita Robinson, who are incredible operators and entrepreneurs that have built an incredible investment practice already with their, with their kind of growth stage VC pendulum.
Very synergistic with Marcy Venture Partners. The new entity will be called Marcy Pen and I’m excited. to share more when I’m able to. Amazing, thank you. Alan, alright, first question is I was kind of doing my research on you I want to know where does the name come from the antidote group, I love it, like just basic, where did the name come from, who came up with it?
I think it was a long night It was it was just a storytelling, you know, and that’s the premise of the name. And I don’t remember the origin of it, but it just had to do with storytelling. And it’s a lot of things that the brands we work with do. It tells stories, you know, with their content, with the things they’re putting out in the marketplace.
So it, it just worked. Yeah. I’m in. I like it. I was like, I was curious. I’m looking it up. I’m like, Oh, this is cool. So follow up to that you mentioned working with with many large brands and helping them scale. So invariably, I mean, there’s many entrepreneurs, many individuals in this audience that want to scale or that are in the process of scaling.
Let’s talk about that specific, you know, you have traction, you got market fit, you’re, you’re kind of there, you’re going to the next level. Obviously every company. is going to be a little bit different. What are some things, what are some mindsets or some things that they should be thinking about as they attempt to enter those next phases?
Sure. I, you know, I, Charlie, you said something that was interesting. You talked about being psychotic, you know, I think number one, you know, which was spot on. I think in the world You know, Preston and I are in, it’s all objective, it’s numbers, it’s data. And sometimes we’re showing these numbers to these founders and these shareholders and these decision makers, and it’s black and white.
They don’t want to see it, they don’t want to believe it, they think that we’re wrong, or they, so they keep running with what they think is gonna work. I think that’s fine, in a sense, because sometimes you have the will to just push through and make things happen, which is, you know, what founders do. But I think areas of opportunity with the companies that we work with are, there’s a lot of siloing.
Right? There’s, there’s the art of content and creation and putting products out in the marketplace. And there’s the science of what we do, which is the data. A lot of the times, these companies, those departments don’t communicate well with each other. They don’t understand, okay, well this content is, you know, it’s getting this many impressions, this much engagement.
And our team, the marketing team, the media buying team, is giving them a different angle, but there’s a disconnect. I think Huge areas of opportunity would be to bring those departments together and figure out how to work better, how to work more closely, how to communicate and speak each other’s languages.
That’s something that we definitely see a lot of. Alright last question warning for me, so I’m gonna ask one more question for the whole group and then I wanna see some hands come up. If you have some, if I don’t see hands come up, I promise you I can ask questions for days but I don’t think that’s what you want.
I think you wanna get your shot at some questions as well for our first. So, my last question, trends. What kind of trends are you guys following right now? Whether it could be technology, marketing, product, whatever you like. What kind of trends are you following? Environmental. I mean, I take a look at, I’ve always been drawn to what consumer movement is happening with or without.
And as I look around the world, the environmental wellness and not too much. Trying to be almost environmental, but really trying to figure it out. And, and I, and I think that’s where I’m going to stay for the rest of my business. Alright. Charlie. I’ll, I’ll piggyback on that for a second, which is to say sustainability and environmental issues.
We’re an investor in a business called Lomi L O M I. Lomi is a countertop kitchen cook. It turns your food waste into topsoil in 24 hours. So you take, you know, the vegetable cuttings and eggshells, you throw it in this composting unit. 24 hours later, you can throw it in your dirt and grow vegetables with it.
You know, there are incredible tailwinds coming with states like California requiring you to compost. And this company is tackling, you know, trash, which is a major issue globally. Another trend that I’m seeing, I think it’s really important is, is health and wellness, particularly around digital health and personalized health.
Giving people the opportunity to test their own blood, to get real time insights into their health on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly basis, and then act on oneself through medication, supplementation, or just changes to diet, exercise, nutrition. You know, all of these things can have actual effects that are measurable in your blood.
Again, on a, on a very regular basis and we’re seeing, you know, the biggest blockbuster drug of a generation happening today. And this is the same trends and, you know, if you, if anyone is looking at him stock recently or, or, or any of these other ones that are offering the GLP ones, this is going to be a major, major shift in healthcare for generations to come.
I would say brand and AI. So on the brand side, how do you stand out in industries that are mainly competitive and oversaturated? I mean, most industries are, right? So really understanding the avatar of your prospective client. You know, where do they like to eat? What movies do they like to watch? What cafe do they go to get their morning tea or coffee?
And then telling, understanding that ecosystem and telling it what you like. put out with content. And then with AI, it’s personalization, right? It’s not new, but I think it’s going to advance a lot quicker than it already has. And it’s going to go from personalization to maybe there’s a COO who doesn’t know how much product to order for next season’s launch.
And it’s going to be able to help them integrate that into their day to day operations. So, to summarize, I would say brand and AI. Amazing.