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. 🚀🚀

Follow me to learn how you can leverage AI to boost your productivity and accelerate your career. Scaled products to 8 Million+ users and built the world's biggest AI newsletter with 1 Million+ readers.

Zain Kahn

This guy from Cambridge plays with Claude Code like he owns it.

He talks about his workflow in 2026 and here's what's new: 

1. Video-Based Specification (Spec Phase)

> Screen Recording: 

Instead of writing a spec from scratch, find an existing product that is similar to your idea. Record your screen while using it and talking through your specific feature ideas and changes.

> Generate PRD: 

Upload this video to Gemini 1.5 Pro (referred to as Gemini 3 Pro/Free Pro in the video context) and ask it to generate a Product Requirement Document (PRD).

> Refine Spec: 

Use the "Ask User Question" tool in Claude Code. Prompt it to interview you about the generated spec to fill in missing details (e.g., "How should the emoji picker be positioned?").

> Package Discovery: 

Feed the refined spec into ChatGPT with "Heavy Thinking" (likely OpenAI's o1/o3 models) to search for and recommend specific, well-maintained GitHub packages (e.g., for a WYSIWYG editor) to avoid building complex components from scratch.

2. The Orchestrator Role

> Design Feedback Loops: 

Your primary job is not to write code but to design loops where the agent can build, fail, and learn.

> Monitor & Update: 

Watch the agent’s reasoning. If it makes a mistake, don't just fix the code—update the claude. md (project instructions file) to prevent that specific mistake from happening again.

> High-Level Decisions: 

Make the architectural decisions the agent can't, such as choosing the database or specific tools.

3. Model Choice & Tools

> Model Selection: 

Use Opus 4.5 for building large-scale features and GPT-5.2 for architecture and debugging (specific future models mentioned in his 2026 context).

> Voice Dictation: 

Use HyperWhisper to dictate prompts significantly faster than typing.

4. Execution & "Parallel Vibe Coding"

> Parallel Agents: 

For small, well-defined tasks (like extracting hard-coded strings for translations), spin up multiple sub-agents to work on different parts of the project simultaneously.

> Avoid Conflicts: 

Do not use parallel agents for large features within the same project to avoid complex merge conflicts ("meshing issues").

> Sub-agents for Multi-Project Fixes: 

If a bug exists in a template used by multiple projects, spin up one sub-agent per project to fix them all in parallel.

5. Review & Maintenance

> Planning Mode: 

Use Claude Code’s "Planning Mode" to prevent Architectural Drift, ensuring the agent sticks to the original design vision over time.

> Shape of Diffs: 

Inspect the "shape" of the code changes (diffs) to ensure they are manageable and align with expectations before accepting them.

> Forking for Learning: 

If the agent does something surprising or complex, fork the session. In the forked session, ask "Why did you do that?" or request diagrams to understand the code without polluting the context of the main working session.

Get more tutorials here: https://lnkd.in/e64Jvdrt

Follow me to learn how you can leverage AI to boost your productivity and accelerate your career. Scaled products to 10 Million+ users.

Traditional computer science degrees can't keep up with this pace.

Here are the 15 engineering blogs that actually teach real-world scale:

1 → THE CODE
Scale at global level.
Teaches you how to code with AI and AI Agents
https://lnkd.in/e64Jvdrt

2 → Airbnb Tech Blog
Product engineering done right.
User focused systems.
https://airbnb.tech/blog/

3 → Meta Engineering
Billions of users infrastructure.
Performance at extreme scale.
https://engineering.fb.com

4 → AWS Architecture
Cloud design patterns revealed.
Production ready blueprints.
https://lnkd.in/gqjh88PS

5 → Netflix TechBlog
Streaming at massive scale.
Chaos engineering explained.
https://lnkd.in/gNE8Cs6Z

6 → Discord Engineering
Real time systems mastery.
Handling millions of connections.
https://lnkd.in/gea6kSwt

7 → Google Research
Cutting edge tech breakthroughs.
Tomorrow's solutions today.
https://lnkd.in/gjzDu8wp

8 → NVIDIA Developer
GPU powered computing insights.
AI infrastructure secrets.
https://lnkd.in/dt_BW7qF

9 → Slack Engineering
Collaboration platform internals.
Distributed systems at scale.
https://slack.engineering

10 → Cloudflare Blog
Internet infrastructure deep dives.
Security and performance wins.
https://lnkd.in/gqa-HE6h

11 → Figma Tech Blog
Collaborative design systems.
Browser performance magic.
https://lnkd.in/g2KF_eX9

12 → Shopify Engineering
E-commerce at scale.
Black Friday traffic handled.
https://lnkd.in/g7DVzRAc

13 → Stripe Engineering
Payment systems that work.
Financial infrastructure explained.
https://lnkd.in/gfMr-jEr

14 → Microsoft Engineering
Enterprise scale solutions.
Developer tools insights.
https://lnkd.in/g3Mi8XES

15 → GitHub Engineering
Code collaboration at scale.
Developer platform secrets.
https://lnkd.in/gPHaD6AC

16 → Bonus
System design deep dives.
https://lnkd.in/g-tP7eEc

Save this for later.
Repost ♻️ for aspiring engineers.

Follow me for more AI playbooks and engineering resources.

Claude Code is only as good as your orchestration workflow.

I spent 6 months testing it so you don't have to. 

[ P.S. You can get my Ultimate Claude Code guide for engineers here at no cost: https://lnkd.in/e64Jvdrt ]

So Boris Cherny (the creator of Claude Code at Anthropic) recently shared the internal best practices his team actually uses daily. 

Someone brilliantly distilled those threads into a structured CLAUDE .md file you can drop straight into any project root.

It acts as a system prompt. Turns Claude into a far more autonomous, rigorous engineering partner.

Here's what it does:

→ 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗳𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝗢𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Mandates "Plan Node Default" for any task over 3 steps. Uses subagents liberally to keep the main context window clean.

→ 𝗦𝗲𝗹𝗳-𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗟𝗼𝗼𝗽: This is the real magic. After ANY correction, it updates a tasks/lessons .md file. You're building a compounding system where the mistake rate drops over time because it actively learns from your feedback.

→ 𝗩𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗕𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗗𝗼𝗻𝗲: Can't mark a task complete without proving it works. Diffs behavior. Runs tests. Checks logs. The bar? "Would a staff engineer approve this?"

→ 𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗕𝘂𝗴 𝗙𝗶𝘅𝗶𝗻𝗴: Zero hand-holding. Point it at failing CI tests or error logs... it just goes to work. No constant context switching from you.

→ 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘁 𝗧𝗮𝘀𝗸 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: Forces a "Plan First" approach written to a todo .md with checkable items before any implementation starts.

And perhaps the most important part?

It forces the AI to prioritize simplicity, find root causes instead of temporary fixes, and minimize the blast radius of every change. Senior developer standards. Not shortcuts.

If you're spending hours a day in the terminal with AI, setting up a strong .md instruction file like this isn't optional anymore. It's the difference between AI that drifts and AI that compounds.

It takes time to set up. But if you do, you're ahead of almost everyone else.

Lemon is the most powerful tool I've used since ChatGPT.

You literally say things with your voice and it does it for you instantly.

Pure magic.

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The Battle

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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

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