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. 🚀🚀

Hassan W. Bhatti

Snowflake Data Marketplace| Co-founder@CN (acq Snowflake)| Investor@Communityfund| I share insights on building start-ups and personal growth

I love building companies. Over the last 10 years, I’ve started, scaled, and exited 4 ventures—some bootstrapped to multi-million ARR, others acquired by industry leaders. Additionally - I was also fortunate to be part of Snowflake Pre-IPO to post-IPO growth phase - seeing what scaling looks like in the product and sales orgs. 

Right now, I’m deep in AI, co-running the world’s largest AI newsletter and building/researching in the Memory and AI agent space. I also invest actively—both through a fund and my own syndicate—backing founders who are building category-defining companies.

Always open to great conversations, whether it’s about building, investing, or the future of AI.

Founder roles currently (2024-Present):
- Superhuman AI (Co-leading fast growing media company)
- Stealth Co (Something in AI)

Founder roles previously (2017-2024):
- CryptoNumerics (Acquired Snowflake)
- Semantic Health (Acquired AAPC)
- Software Services business (Acquired by a family business) 
- Law Firm (Rebuilt and grew family law firm)

Previously worked at (2015-2024):
- Snowflake (Product and GTM roles)
- Iris Automation (1st Product and Biz hire)

Education:
- 2010-2015: BSc in Physics and Economics at University of British Columbia on a full ride scholarship 
- 2020-2023: LLB with Upper Second Class Honours (Grade 2:1) from University of London
- Multiple certifications in AI, business, and software from Uoft, Harvard, and other programs

Product & Partnerships - Data Marketplace 

Key focus areas:
- Native Apps (2023-Present)
- Global Lead for HCLS Vertical (2021 - 2023)
- Data Monetization Product and 0-1 growth strategy  (2021 - 2022)
- Working across all industries (2020 - 2022)
- Launched EMEA and APAC (2020-2021)
- Cryptonumerics integration (2020)

Think it. Say it. Done.

The average person spends 3 hours typing + switches 1,000 tabs per day.

That ends today.

Meet Lemon: The first voice-to-action AI agent that turns your voice commands into finished tasks.

Comment "Lemon" to get free access for 30 days.

(must be following so I can DM you)

Building | 2x exited founder (acq Snowflake) | Start-up to Post-IPO | Investor@Nextwave

If you’ve been in AI long enough, you know when something shifts.

The last 12 months the slope steepened.

Models now:
• Write and ship production-level code.
• Handle multi-step reasoning reliably.
• Work across large codebases and documents without collapsing.
• Orchestrate tools and execute structured workflows.
• Cost materially less per experiment than a year ago.

And the pace between releases is compressing.

What matters isn’t just that models are better. It’s that iteration cycles are collapsing.

You can now:
- Ship MVPs in days.
- Run 10x more experiments per sprint.
- Test product hypotheses without adding headcount.
- Refactor entire systems without touching most of the code yourself.

The builders who understand this are reorganizing around it.

Smaller teams > higher leverage > more shots on goal > faster feedback loops.

This is the first time in my career where capability, cost, and velocity all improved at once.

If you’re building on the app layer right now, this is an unusually asymmetric moment.

Lean in.

We've been extremely lucky to have some of the sharpest minds in tech sit down with us on Superhuman.

We’ve talked about 
- Building in monopolized markets
- Competing with giants
- AI-native companies
- Capital allocation
- Leadership under pressure

...and a lot more

If you care about where AI, startups, and ambition collide then this is for you.

Youtube: https://lnkd.in/eSzrdVj4
Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gWgSbXwa
Apple Podcast: https://lnkd.in/gTB2ENcU

Why is building a great team critical for entrepreneurs?

Here's ashfaq munshi, CEO of Pepperdata, talking about how your team is your biggest asset as a builder

Watch the full episode: https://lnkd.in/eQiJTSh8

Who says you can't have a little fun at work?

Founder Lowerated | AI Engineer (heylemon.ai)

Call me the Godfather or Batman, either one works.

With Lemon and your voice you can:
    - set your writing style and tone.
    - setup workflows and trigger them with a a single word 🙌

No extra menus or screens. Personalize Lemon however you want, just gotta use your voice.

Use it here: https://heylemon.ai
 
What would you teach your AI to remember?

taplio

The Battle

Mike Gelb

Hassan W. Bhatti

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreMike Gelb's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreHassan W. Bhatti's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Mike Gelb

Hassan W. Bhatti

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Mike Gelb's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreHassan W. Bhatti's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreMike Gelb's LinkedIn Performance