Chris Ghent

Want to know the story behind those unique Asian-inspired sparkling water flavors you've been seeing? I sat down with Sandro Roco of Sanzo on the Consumer Rundown podcast. We talked #Asian representation and voices, building a #beverage empire, and the importance of being a "good ancestor"! Listen to the full conversation – link in comments! #entrepreneurship #cpgindustry #beveragebusiness

21

5 Comments

Techstars Boston Accelerator Demo Day was AMAZING on Tuesday - it’s been a minute since I’ve been involved with the program (I was a founder from 2015 Cohort!!). But w my role Palm Venture Studios I spend a (small) portion of my time on deal flow, diligence etc. It’s SO SO inspiring to meet entrepreneurs who are working to bring something new & innovative into the world. Side note - I gotta get better at thinking about pics - only one I took was of Sean Grundy / Bevi as talking about how influential TS was… __________________ A few observations from the day: ✅ those founders were so much better prepared than I was 10 yrs ago. The companies seemed further along, the pitches were so concise, with big news / traction, and well-delivered. [full disclosure: I was part of the selection committee for part of this - so a little biased… but I REALLY thought they all did well]. Special shoutout to the handful of companies I’ve been a (teeny tiny) ad-hoc mentor to: ▶️ Phare Labs - creating next generation fire / smoke alarm to help multi-family property owners save $ and better asset protection. ▶️ GRAVL unlocking IP from universities allowing commercialization & monetization of incredible research being done in labs. ▶️ Ada IQ speeding & improving prod design & development w AI - augmenting what humans can ▶️ Citera helping commercial prop owners save $ by reducing their carbon footprint. So many other companies - but I already wrote too much… ❌ wish there were more former TS founders at the event. The venue was great though small (it’s amazing how much the area has transformed), but man getting there is a bit of a pain… "Techstars for life" means you benefit and hopefully contribute to the community forever - I know TS Corp has been in turmoil a bit - but seems like things are changing. (H/T Kerty Levy and new Boston MD Jennifer Davis). Quite literally I’m not sure I would’ve survived my first journey without my CEO support group… _________________ Last minute, I decided to host a few startup peeps at PVS Somerville - thinking Demo Day was in Cambridge 🤷‍♂️. Fortunately, a few folks took me up on it - even though inconvenient and last minute… Was great seeing Irina Gerry, Harry Schechter, Joe Lemay, Pritesh Gandhi stop by PVS with me & Jamal Wilson - bc they’re amazing startup operators… and didn’t know one another. Nothing better than seeing smart people chat and make instant connections. In true startup fashion, this deserves another test… so I think we may do more of these… maybe tied to TS Monthly Meetups or some other startup networking thing. Selfishly, this would be a reason for me to come into Boston / Somerville - bc otherwise I’m heads down building Woodstock Products :). _______________ So hit me up if you’re in the Boston Startup Community and wanna participate. These will def be craft / small-batch initially. And hopefully a few of my old TS founders will come too :).

29

8 Comments

Cannabis Industry, why are you putting the primary revenue-generating system to a third party? It's baffling. Instead of relying on external platforms prone to frequent breakdowns, consider the immense value of an in-house solution. Let's collaborate to craft a robust system tailored to your specific needs, ensuring seamless operations even on landmark days like 420. Initially, the appeal might have been compliance and connectivity, but that convenience came at a big cost, both in effectiveness and expense. Today, the market offers a myriad of compliant options, including the opportunity to internalize your critical revenue infrastructure with our expertise. Demonstrate the professionalism this industry demands. Let's not settle for amateur-hour solutions. Let's do better. Give us a call, and together, we'll build a solution that empowers your business for the long haul. https://kief.studio/metrc

3

A really interesting and powerful performance management practice. "Use the “30-day test” to maintain a high-performance team. Create a reminder to ask yourself this question 30 days after someone joins the team: “Knowing what I know today, would I hire this person?” If the answer is yes, tell the person you’re excited about them and give them more equity—you’ll gain a lot of loyalty. If the answer is no, you need to fire them immediately, to avoid the inevitable damage they will cause to you, your team, and themselves." from Uri Levine Founder of Waze, via Lenny's podcast. https://lnkd.in/gyS2HzZP

10

As an outsider looking in, Garnish Studios seems like a great company. They make beautiful content and the founder, Thi Lam, appears to have a fantastic reputation. NOTE: Some agencies make great content, but the people (or processes) stink. Some people are great, but their work is just meh. Thi and Garnish seem to have the full package. To some, they would appear like a competitor. To me, they are another "athlete on the field," and I admire and respect their game. This is not a zero-sum situation, and we can all win if we do things the right way. Tipping my hat to that group for their efforts! #cpg #cpgindustry #socialmediacontent

51

9 Comments

A lot of you have heard me say "we aren't thematic investors EXCEPT when it comes to our consumer thesis and Vertikal Brands". So what does that mean exactly, and how did we choose to double down on outdoor specifically? I recently sat down with Matt Blevins who heads up the strategy for Clearview Capital, L.P. and we had the chance to talk about just that! Tune into our third episode of 'Coffee with Clearview' to learn more about how we got started in the space, and how we continue to partner with world-class outdoor consumer brands. #consumerprivateequity #consumerproducts #privateequity #outdoorenthusiast #outdoorbrands

19

What does it take for a startup to succeed in music-tech? More than Product-Market fit -- you also need Industry Market fit and Investor Market fit. I wrote about these patterns https://lnkd.in/gF4wBSfX

338

31 Comments

"Synapse’s problems have hurt and taken down a whole bunch of other startups and affected consumers all over the country. To recap: San Francisco-based Synapse operated a service that allowed others (mainly fintechs) to embed banking services into their offerings. For instance, a software provider that specialized in payroll for 1099 contractor-heavy businesses used Synapse to provide an instant payment feature; others used it to offer specialized credit/debit cards. Until last year, for example, it was providing those types of services as an intermediary between banking partner Evolve Bank & Trust and business banking startup Mercury until Evolve and Mercury decided to work directly with each other and cut out Synapse as a middleman. Synapse raised a total of just over $50 million in venture capital in its lifetime, including a 2019 $33 million Series B raise led by Andreessen Horowitz’s Angela Strange. The startup wobbled in 2023 with layoffs and filed for Chapter 11 in April of this year, hoping to sell its assets in a $9.7 million firesale to another fintech, TabaPay. But TabaPay walked. It’s not entirely clear why. Synapse threw a lot of blame at Evolve, as well as at Mercury, both of whom raised their hands and told TechCrunch they were not responsible. Once responsive, Synapse CEO and co-founder Sankaet Pathak is no longer responding to our requests for comment. But the result is that Synapse is now close to being forced to liquidate entirely under Chapter 7 and a lot of other fintechs and their customers are paying the price of Synapse’s demise..." https://lnkd.in/eAwWyCwj

2

UGC creators should be on red alert. UGC is turning AI-GC. We've been sharing our thoughts on AI disruption on Influencer Marketing, and predicted UGC was the most vulnerable category of the creator economy, the most susceptible to transformation. Now Techcrunch reports that TikTok will allow brands to create UGCs (more like AI GCs) with genAI. What does this mean for creators? What does this mean for brands and agencies? Will YouTube and IG follow? https://lnkd.in/dU-iPaBK

3

Got a fundraising sea story for you . . . I've known Andrew Bialecki and Ed Hallen, Klaviyo co-founders, for >10 years. They personally helped me back when Klaviyo had ~10 employees. I was running marketing at a turnaround in Boston (Karmaloop--it had gone bankrupt). Klaviyo was a few doors down on Boylston street. Or Newbury. I can't quite remember. Our turnaround marketing team was FRUSTRATED. Karmaloop's email program was on some legacy platform (I won't mention it. . . we shouldn't speak ill of the dead). We couldn't do any of the lifecycle marketing we wanted to do . . . . . . and lifecycle marketing was critical to our turnaround thesis. It was the only way we were going to make it work. So after a particularly frustrating time trying to get a triggered email send to work, I threw up my hands, announced "I'm going next door," walked over to Klaviyo, and knocked on the door. Ed answered. Andrew waved--he was coding. "Hey, can your team help me migrate this beast onto your platform and make it sing? Like, this week?" Andrew and Ed bent over backwards for me and helped me get Karmaloop's 5M emails migrated and humming. It's not a stretch to say the turnaround (and the next ones) could only happen because of Klaviyo. I've stayed in touch with them ever since. They've given Michael Epstein and me advice over the years, been in our corner, and been a part of PostPilot journey. (PostPilot's original thesis was simple: "Klaviyo for direct mail." Now, it feels like the story's come full circle, because Andrew and Ed just invested in PostPilot's Series A. Like so many other things in my career, it all started with a turnaround. 

349

17 Comments

NY friends! Please come see me at Tech Day on my panel discussing the future of the NY tech ecosystem and what I hope to bring to it!

72

5 Comments

“The funding landscape has changed during the time we have been involved in it, and continues to evolve,” “And we’re evolving with it, to ensure that there is even more flexibility for companies to access the specific capital they need for a given scenario. We’ve funded well over 180 technology companies across multiple industries and verticals, and we’re not slowing down any time soon.” Regarding the total addressable market for Tractor to operate in, Imam explains that the one-funding-product-fits-all approach has required tweaking, simply due to the totally different needs expressed by the financial decision-makers, related to time, total access to the capital itself, and looming milestones that require a more strategic approach to accessing capital. “If you’re a SaaS company, or an ecommerce company, or a hardware company, or operating in a particular niche or vertical like marketing tech for example, you will have a different set of needs for funding based on your revenue,” explains Imam. “We’ve moved to a scenario-based funding model, based on the most common queries we receive at this point in time. B2B Enterprise SaaS we will always be able to fund in an instant. Other scenarios arise when the financials require a bit more flexible and bespoke assessment.” “In particular, our Inventory product points to our capability to fund in some very very specific and founder-focussed ways, and that flexibility really excites us, now and for the future.” Thank you for this write up SmartCompany!

37

4 Comments

Are you an early-stage founder or on the marketing team of a consumer brand looking to make content that is impactful and converts heading into the second half of the year? Dash Hudson have released their latest Cross-Channel Benchmark Report where they analyzed the activity of over 4,700 brands across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube during the first half of 2024 to report on content strategy trends you need to know to set yourself up for success during Q4. Check out the report to discover: - How to leverage the strengths of each platform for maximum impact ✅ - What content types drive the highest engagement and growth 📈 - The most effective posting cadences for TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube 📅 - How to utilize niche communities to boost brand presence 🌐 - How to leverage creators and celebrities in amplifying engagement 📣 The 20-page benchmark report is a free resource and packed with valuable insights and actionable tips to help you optimize your content strategy, based on real-world data. Seriously, it’s worth downloading (and it's free) ✨  https://lnkd.in/gF-4upK2 ✨ #marketingtips #ecommerce #consumerbrand #socialstrategy

34

9 Comments

The Neighborhood Studios team spent the last few days thinking about our new idea pipeline and its output. Tons of thoughts on this after being in a venture studio for 2 years. Here are some summary stats... - 1,750 new (raw) ideas considered per year. - 110 of those are given a second glance. - 66 of those are seriously considered. - 10 of those become experiments...real products in the hands of customers. - 2 of those are spun-out into studio companies. What the studio team has been discussing over the past few days is that 66 number. That's the number of ideas that 3 people on the team can dig into every year. Venture studios can be perceived as a "startup factory"...an engine to launch startups. The reality is that venture studios are a machine to invalidate ideas. We invalidate many more ideas than we validate. We touch 1,750 ideas per year, seriously dive into 66 of them, build experiments for 10 of them and only launch 2 of them. All that work turns into 2 studio companies per year that have a way higher success rate than the average startup in the wild. Said another way...startups are hard. Talk with Tapan Patel Gabe Hart Whit Anderson IV Jonathan Brinson if you wanna talk about this. They are world class.

127

28 Comments

PITCH DECK DESIGN FOR STARTUPS AND FUNDS. If you're a founder with a brilliant idea, a startup seeking funds at any-letter-round, or a fund raising capital, you all have one thing in common—you might need a pitch deck, and that deck needs to be designed.

23

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐨 This past Monday, I had the incredible opportunity to demo and pitch Jammy to over 100 investors at NY #TechWeek AI Demo Day. Two weeks ago, thanks to Cindy Berman, I found out about the event and hesitated to sign up, doubting our product’s readiness. However, I saw it as a chance to push our limits. After a screening with Shriya Nevatia we were one of eight companies chosen, and I had to figure out how to demo our work-in-progress app and deliver an eight-minute pitch. I prepared thoroughly and felt confident. On the day, Dorothy Chang informed me I’d be the first presenter, which made me both nervous and excited. The pitch went well until the live demo. When showcasing Jammy’s ability to recommend post-session music, the integration failed despite my preparation. I still finished the presentation, landing the vision for Jammy and with congratulations and consolation from my peers: “live demos always break,” they said. It helped. Though I didn’t win the $50K prize, I secured a check from an angel investor, generated interest from several others, and met amazing founders in AI. The winning pitch went to the highly deserving CAPSULE, who is set to revolutionize contextual visual shopping search (like Shazam for shopping). Very cool. This experience highlighted the value of taking risks and the importance of failing forward. It also reminded me of the supportive NY Tech and entrepreneurial community. The journey can be lonely, and many dismiss community events and networking as distractions from the "real work." While that might sometimes be true, Monday night was a reminder that we’re not alone in this journey. We all want to see each other succeed in building the - extremely AI-infused - future we envision. On to the next challenge! And definitely check out these amazing companies & founders: Glist, Gülin Yilmaz (Posokhow), Path, Soar.com, Abood Hannoon, DeepLeads.ai, pre.dev, and In The Loop

36

2 Comments

At last week’s ClimateTech Coffee 🚲 Bryan White and I were joined by Kimberly Gilbert, PhD to hear about her work on Carbon Neutralization and Ocean Storage (CNOS) through her company pHathom. Here’s a recap: The ocean naturally absorbs CO2 over time, but we’ve added so much that the ocean has become increasingly acidic. Ocean pH has dropped from 8.2 to 8.1 globally over the last hundred years, and as pH drops it becomes harder for coral-based organisms to form shells. To combat this, Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE) is an intervention that both reverses ocean acidification and removes CO2 from the atmosphere. Challenges with traditional OAE: - When you add the alkalinity into the ocean, it spreads out. It’s hard to measure the change in pH. - You don’t know exactly when the extra CO2 will be absorbed. Modeling and measurement companies are trying to help with this problem. Advantages of CNOS: - Co2 is captured directly at a coastal power plant or refinery, and then the concentrated Co2 is pumped into water that has limestone (and/or other alkaline materials) in it.  - This means the Co2 is dissolved onsite and the pH can be equilibrated onsite, which makes accurate measurement more feasible. Factors that affect progress:  - We’ll start seeing more companies enter in this space as the chemistry and its impacts are better understood and seen as safe  - Local and national permitting are a huge bottleneck - On the international permitting level, the London Protocol has a blanket ban on ocean geoengineering for anything except for research. There were good reasons for doing that, but it’s unclear who decides when that can change and the circumstances under which the ban is lifted. (Note: pHathom is not doing geoengineering; it’s doing water treatment on-site and releasing it back as ocean water) Open questions for the category/technology: - Can they come up with enough low-cost alkalinity sources, and get them in a way that doesn’t cause additional environmental damage or Co2 emissions?  - This approach will require pumping a lot of water. How much will that cost and how can the cost be driven down?  - Putting 100 plants’ worth of bicarbonate into the ocean is likely fine for ocean health relative to the climate benefit, but what is the point where the tradeoffs cross over? Some groups doing good work in this space:  [C]Worthy Carbon to Sea Initiative  University Research: UC Santa Barbara, University of Tasmania, GEOMAR, Dalhousie University, Scripps Join us for the next one in May! Details coming soon, and you can get updates by subscribing to the series page here: https://lnkd.in/g7DTGm2V

19

TV right now is wall-to-wall "mid." But why? I think a lot of pieces right now are missing the true culprit. For example, this James Poniewozik piece does a fantastic job of laying out what exactly that looks like: all-star casts and highly-competent direction, but familiar and low-stakes. Like a fancy cheeseburger. He, like most pieces on the subject, pins it on the streaming business model. I think there's something else going on that's different about TV today versus when people were glued to The Wire, The Sopranos, or Twin Peaks that goes deeper than the underlying business model. It's our second screen. When I talk to friends about what they're watching, a lot admit they can't watch foreign language TV, or stuff that's too complex, because they have their phone or laptop open. We’ve relegated TV to comfortable background noise. The streaming model gives people what they want, but what they overwhelmingly want is comfortable and mid, not because that's where their tastes lie if something has 100% of their attention. It's because they are calibrating their TV taste to what works for 40% of their attention. I don't have a solution, but I'm pretty sure that's the cause. I don't think Hollywood has lost its spark or financiers have lost their taste for risk. We've lost our taste for stuff that requires our full attention.

37

6 Comments