Mike Gelb

Follow for insights on venture capital, consumer startups and tips on how to build your network // Looking To Learn? Head to 👉 theconsumervc.com

I didn’t grow up in venture.

My background was in the music industry - producing, promoting, and trying to make sense of creativity and business.

But something kept pulling me toward the world of startups. I was fascinated by how brands get built, funded, and scaled.

I didn’t know anyone in VC.

I just started asking questions.

The first few podcast episodes? Awkward.

I overdubbed my voice. 

I stuttered. 

But I kept showing up.

300+ episodes later, Consumer VC has become one of the most trusted platforms in the space - a home for real conversations between founders, investors, and operators who are shaping what we buy and why we buy it.

- 7.5K+ newsletter subscribers
- Listeners in 100+ countries
- Events in LA, NYC & Austin

I focus on what actually drives scale - from pre-seed to $500M+ in revenue and how people navigate the messy middle of brand-building.

If you’re building or backing something in CPG, wellness, retail, marketplaces, social or consumer tech - I’d love for you to be part of it.

Subscribe to the newsletter in the Featured section below. 👇

Venture Scout

A podcast serving founders and investors that want to learn how some of the top venture capitalists that invest in B2C businesses make investing decisions.

Past guests include:
Mark Gainey, Founder of Strava
Andy Dunn, Founder of Bonobos
Ariel Kaye, Founder of Parachute
Denise Woodard, Founder of Partake Foods
Nagraj Kashyap, Managing Partner at Softbank Investment Advisors' Vision Fund
Wayne Wu, General Partner at VMG
Mike Duda, Managing Partner at Bullish
Brendan Rogers, Co-founder of Wag! and 2am
Madeline Haydon, Founder of nut pods
Matteo Franceschetti, Founder of Eight Sleep
Bret Thomas, Founder of CAVU Venture Partners
Carter Reum, Founder of M13
Soraya Darabi, Founder of TMV
Elizabeth Yin, Founder of Hustle Fund
Ariana Thacker, Founding Partner of Conscience VC
Henri Pierre-Jacques, Founder of Harlem Capital
Greg Bettinelli, Partner at Upfront Ventures
Daniel Gluck, General Partner at Powerplant Ventures
Kiva Dickinson, Founder of Selva Ventures
Adelle Archer, Founder of Eterneva
Kanyi Maqubela, Founder of Kindred Ventures
Steve Hughes, Founder of Sunrise Strategic Partners
Seth Goldman, Founder of Honest Tea, Eat the Change and PLNT Burger
Spike Mendelsohn, Celebrity Chef & Founder of Eat the Change, PLNT Burger
Jesse Draper, Founder of Halogen Ventures
Nick Saltarelli, Founder of Mid-Day Squares
Charles Hudson, Founder of Precursor Ventures
Rick Desai, General Partner at Listen Ventures
Michele Romanow, Founder of Clearco
Mac the VC, Founder of Rarebreed
Michael Ronen, Founder of Branded
Jason Karp, Founder of Humanco, Hu Kitchen and Hu Chocolate
Jackie Fast, Founder of Sandbox Studios
Joe Kudla, Founder of Vouri
John Foraker, Founder of Once Upon a Farm
Kate Beardsley, Founder of Hannah Grey
Mike Ghaffary, General Partner at Canvas
Nisha Dua, Founder of BBG Ventures
Ben Sun, Founder of Primary Ventures
+ more

Ranked by Listen Notes as one of the top 1% most popular shows globally.

To learn more, head over to www.theconsumervc.com

New Consumer VC with Craig Dubitsky.

Craig's built brands in cleaning, oral care, lip balm, and now coffee.

Categories most people avoid because they're too boring or too competitive.

But with Hello, he asked: Why is every toothpaste box covered in extracted teeth and fear-based messaging?

Instead of "kills" and "eliminates," he chose one word. Hello.

And flipped the entire tone of the category.

Now he's doing it again with Happy Coffee, co-founded with Robert Downey Jr.

Not positioning coffee as fuel or ritual. As a delivery system for happiness.

And the mission goes deeper than marketing:
• Happy gave NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) equity
• Mental health resources on every package
• Direct partnership with the org, not just a donation

We also talk about how Craig met Downey, why he's a true co-founder (not a spokesperson), and how they built blends together across time zones while Downey was filming overseas.

This might be the longest interview I've ever done and grateful for Craig being so generous with his time.

BIG thanks to David Simnick on introducing me to Craig.

And thank you to our good friend at The Hidden Gems for sponsoring this episode!

The Hidden Gems connects founders with highly vetted, brand-beloved boutique agencies across media, creative, dev/design, events, social, and more — at preferred rates. They’ve supported brands like Dr. Squatch, Monster Energy, Gorilla Mind, FIGS, and Saatva.

Contact David Drexler to get started



Link in comments to the full interview 👇
Link in comments to the full interview 👇
Link in comments to the full interview 👇

#CPG #Consumer #Investing #venturecapital #coffee

Founder and Host of Consumer VC | 300+ Unfiltered Conversations with Top VCs & Founders | Building the #1 Community for Consumer Investors and Founders

I had a conversation yesterday that stuck with me.

A founder who just signed a term sheet for a line of credit.

After receiving seven term sheets total.

That’s seven different banks and alternative lenders.

All with different terms, covenants, and fine print.

Sounds like a good problem to have, right?

Not quite. Here's what they told me:
• Applying with and managing relationships with 7 different lenders simultaneously was a full-time job. 
• Negotiating back and forth on terms that all looked similar but weren't
• Reading through pages of fine print to spot the differences
• Trying to compare apples to apples when everything was slightly different
• Doing all of this while running the actual business 

The whole process took weeks and was absolutely brutal.

When I mentioned Bridge's platform, which streamlines the entire process, their response was immediate: 

"I wish I had known about this from the beginning." 

Because here's the thing. 

Raising debt isn't just about getting the money. 

It's about managing the process efficiently so you can stay focused on growing the business. 

That's why I'm excited to be part of Bridge. 

We get you competitive offers within 48 hours. 

And you can focus on building your company instead of juggling term sheets. 

Best part? 

The platform is 100% free to use. 

After I explained what Bridge does, this founder said exactly what I was thinking: "Why didn't I use you all in the first place?" 

If you're looking to raise debt, we have 500+ lenders on our platform and would love to help you run a competitive process.

P.S. All the lenders this founder received term sheets from are on our platform 🙂

👀

Excited for tomorrow's Consumer VC episode

Is the VC fund structure broken for early-stage consumer?

Manica Blain thinks it might be.

Manica's one of the OG consumer VCs.

She backed FIGS and Cotopaxi through her fund Campfire Capital, one of the earliest dedicated early-stage consumer funds.

Now she's moved to a completely different model.

On the latest episode, she gets candid about the structural problems she's seen from the inside.

A few things that stuck with me:
• SPVs sound flexible, but they come with real tradeoffs
• Slow brand growth is often a better signal than early viral spikes
• Management fees can quietly shift a fund's focus away from returns
• GP commit size changes how much skin an investor actually has in the game

She also talks about why she now invests through Top Knot using her own capital, works directly with founders as an operator and advisor, and why she thinks that model is a better partnership for consumer companies.

There's also a great bit on why she stopped investing in food and beverage entirely.

If you care about how early-stage consumer investing actually works, this one's worth your time.

The episode is also brought to you by The Hidden Gems!

There's a lot of BS in the Agency landscape. That's why Founders and Executives of brands both big and small trust: The Hidden Gems. 

They provide the most optimal boutique Agencies to conquer any brand goals with top quality and efficiency. Brands get preferred rates. Can't lose. They’re supporting the growth of incredible brands like Dr. Squatch, Monster Energy, Gorilla Mind, Saatva and many more. DM founder David Drexler to get started

Link to listen to the full episode in the comments 👇👇👇

#consumer #venturecapital #podcast #CPG #ConsumerVC

This is awesome. All brand founders should apply

We want to send you to the World Cup!!

Flights, hotel, transportation covered. Oh also - TWO tickets to our all-exclusive Glimpse suite at the game.  ⚽ 🔥🔥 

Here's how to enter to join us on June 18th in LA.
👉 Book a meeting with Glimpse and bring your brand's Founder, C-level, or VP+ Finance/Logistics/Ops leader
👉 If you are a brand's Founder, C-level, or VP+ Finance/Logistics/Ops leader, book a meeting with Glimpse
👉 Post on LinkedIn that you've entered and tag @Glimpse for a bonus entry

Link to enter in the comments. 🚀🚀

Alex Banks

Building a better future with AI

Alex Banks is a founder, creator and investor. He reaches over 1 million people on social media each week with insights into the world of artificial intelligence (AI).

He is the founder and writer of The Signal, a weekly newsletter that cuts through the AI noise to over 55,000+ readers.

Alex is also an active early-stage investor and advisor to startups across the AI and technology landscape.

👉 All partnerships, enquiries and speaking engagements: contact@noisemedia.ai

Writer

Your AI company is just a wrapper.

But that's the whole point.

When Chinese company Manus AI released their autonomous agent, one comment kept appearing:

"It's just a Claude wrapper."

The comment was absolutely right. Manus is only a Claude wrapper.

As Peak, a Co-Founder of Manus, clearly stated:

"We use Claude and different Qwen-finetunes" alongside various tools and open-source packages.

Yet somehow this becomes a "gotcha" that diminishes what's been built.

For some context, let's extend this logic:

• Salesforce is an Oracle database wrapper valued at $320 billion
• Stripe is a Mastercard wrapper valued at $70 billion
• AWS is an HPC primitives wrapper valued at $3 trillion

It turns out that everything in tech is a wrapper.

But in AI things get interesting:

→ We thought the application layer would be commoditised
→ We believed value would concentrate in foundation models
→ The reality is playing out differently

The models themselves are rapidly becoming commodities.

As the cost of intelligence trends toward zero, the real opportunity lies in:

1. Infusing unique insights
2. Leveraging proprietary data sets
3. Creating magical user experiences
4. Building networks effects and a community
5. Combining the best LLMs with specialised tools

These are the areas where I see a sustainable advantage.

So, yes, your AI company might be "just a wrapper."

But that's exactly where the value is being created.

Follow me Alex Banks for daily AI highlights and insights.

I cover the most important AI developments each week in my newsletter.

Subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/ePSZP6KF

Unitree's G1 humanoid undergoes brutal stress testing.

And I can't stop watching.

The robot in question is the Unitree G1 humanoid:

• 1.32m tall, 35kg build
• 23 degrees of freedom for human-like movement
• 2m/s walking speed
• Advanced 3D LiDAR and sensors
• 2-hour battery life
• $16,000 price tag

It’s even available to buy at Walmart.

G1 has now learned an "Anti-Gravity" mode.

This means that stability is greatly improved under any action sequence.

Even if it falls, it can quickly get back up in under 2 seconds.

The robot has essentially learned to “hack” physics.

You can see in the video that it uses the inertia from bouncing to perform some action.

Knock over the average human and we’ll be on the ground for at least a couple of minutes.

My takeaway:

Whilst “violence tests” are fun for attention.

I’m more interested in seeing real demos that people actually care about, like doing the dishes, vacuuming, laundry, etc.

Control for body mechanics is mostly solved right now.

But fine motor skills, specifically hand dexterity, are the real bottleneck.

When we achieve this and understand how to scale manufacturing, the future is unlocked.

Follow me Alex Banks for daily AI highlights and insights.

I cover the most important AI developments each week in my newsletter.

Subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/ePSZP6KF

P.S. He forgot to sweep the leg…

Anthropic said no to the Pentagon.
OpenAI signed the deal hours later.
Here's what happened:

Anthropic drew two red lines with the Department of War:

1. No mass domestic surveillance
↳ AI can now analyse bulk data the government buys on Americans at scale
↳ Currently legal, but only because the law hasn't caught up

2. No fully autonomous weapons
↳ AI isn't reliable enough to automate selecting and engaging targets
↳ No oversight framework exists for removing humans from the loop

For context:

→ Anthropic was the first AI company on the classified cloud
→ Deployed across intelligence, cyber ops, and combat support
→ Forfeited hundreds of millions cutting off CCP-linked firms
→ These two red lines represent ~1% of use cases

The Pentagon gave Anthropic a 3-day ultimatum.

Anthropic refused.

The response:

→ President Trump: "Their selfishness is putting AMERICAN LIVES at risk"
→ Secretary of War Pete Hegseth: Anthropic is a "supply chain risk"
→ Trump ordered every federal agency to cease all use of Anthropic's technology

Then OpenAI entered.

On Friday morning, Altman publicly backed Anthropic's red lines.

By Friday evening, he'd signed the Pentagon deal himself:

→ OpenAI claims the same red lines as Anthropic, plus a third
→ OpenAI asked the Pentagon to offer identical terms to all AI labs
→ Multiple OpenAI employees signed an open letter supporting Anthropic
→ Altman admitted the deal was "definitely rushed" and "the optics don't look good"

The consumer backlash was immediate:

→ "Cancel ChatGPT" went viral across Reddit and X
→ Claude hit # 1 on the App Store, overtaking ChatGPT
→ Claude is now # 1 in Germany, Canada, and other markets

My takeaway:

Not only have I seen my workflows fully transition from ChatGPT to Claude over the last year, but the consumer mass-market is catching up.

I think it’s also important to point out that correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation here.

Claude didn’t just hit # 1 in the app store as a result of ChatGPT accepting the DOW deal.

Anthropic has simply built a better product where the timing of adoption happened to coincide with this viral uproar of the company denying use of their products for the surveillance of Americans and operation of autonomous weapons.

Ethical positioning now has direct commercial consequences.

Values are becoming a competitive moat.

I covered this idea yesterday in my newsletter.

Be the first to receive it by subscribing today.

Read it here: https://lnkd.in/e898z7SG

Claude just made switching from ChatGPT effortless.
You can now import your entire memory in 30 seconds.
Here's exactly how it works:

Step 1: Go to Claude Settings → Capabilities
↳ Scroll to the Memory section
↳ Find "Import memory from other AI providers"
↳ Click "Start import"

Step 2: Copy the prompt Claude gives you
↳ The pop-out shows a ready-made prompt
↳ Hit Copy (it's already written for you)

Step 3: Paste it into ChatGPT (or any other AI)
↳ Open a new ChatGPT chat and paste the prompt
↳ It exports everything: your identity, career, projects, preferences

Step 4: Paste the results back into Claude
↳ Switch back to the Claude import pop-out
↳ Paste ChatGPT's response into the text box
↳ Hit "Add to memory"

That's it. Claude now knows everything ChatGPT knew about you.

What gets transferred:

→ How you like to be spoken to
→ Your role, projects, and goals
→ Tools and frameworks you use
→ Every preference and correction you've made

My takeaway:

Claude hit # 1 on the App Store on Monday.
They’re now # 1 on the Android Store today.

A lot of people are curious about switching but assume they'll lose months of context they've built up with their exiting AI model provider.

That friction just disappeared.

Anthropic has removed the last real switching cost.

Whether it be ChatGPT, Gemini, or Grok, you no longer have to start from scratch.

Memory portability is vital for the AI to have robust context about you as an individual and tailor outputs appropriately.

What’s more, the utility of memory compounds over time.

My memory with Claude is already over 2 pages long.

If you've been on the fence, now's the time.

Follow me Alex Banks for daily AI highlights and insights.

I’ll be doing full coverage in this week’s newsletter.
Subscribe to The Signal: https://lnkd.in/ePSZP6KF

The people building AI keep walking away from it.

And they're not leaving quietly.

In the past week alone:

1. Mrinank Sharma, Anthropic's Safeguards Research lead, resigned with an open letter declaring the world is facing "interconnected crises."
2. Zoë Hitzig, an OpenAI research scientis,t published a New York Times op-ed warning about user manipulation through ChatGPT's emerging ad strategy.
3. Two more xAI co-founders left (half the founding team is now gone)

Rewind further and the list grows:

→ Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI's co-founder, left to start a safety-focused company (May 2024)
→ Jan Leike, co-lead of OpenAI's Superalignment team, resigned saying safety had taken a backseat (May 2024)
→ Miles Brundage, OpenAI's senior advisor for AGI readiness, warned that no lab is prepared for what's coming (October 2024)

Every industry has turnover.

But this isn't normal turnover.

These are researchers who spent years building the most advanced AI systems ever created.

And something about what they saw made them walk away.

If the people who understand this technology best can't reconcile building it with their own conscience, what does that tell the rest of us?

Or are they partnering with national publications to generate clicks while leaning into the "fear AI" angle to drive demand for their next venture?

Only time will tell.

Follow me Alex Banks for daily AI highlights and insights.

I explore ideas like this weekly in my newsletter The Signal.
Subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/ePSZP6KF

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