Fifty Six. / The Reflections & Learnings Edition (Part II).
On VHS Ventures’s First Year, Metronome Watches, and Building Your Own Table.
Hey, everybody.
Sorry for the 4 month hiatus! With VHS Ventures hitting its first birthday on June 13th (woo!), it’s been quite a busy 2024 so far, combined with some deal work, side gigs, and family life in between. That being said, I’m going to try and restart a better cadence here for Le Cinq, but this edition is mostly dedicated to the past 12 months since truly achieving a full-circle moment in the venture world.
It’s also been quite exhausting doing this all by myself, and I’ll soon be able to hire and grow, but until then, it’s been draining but beyond fulfilling, and I wouldn’t take anything back.
What are you currently working on?
On June 13th, 2023, the deck was finished, the capital was pulled in, and www.vhs.vc went LIVE. VHS Ventures was born. It was a full-circle moment for me, and now that we have a year in the books, we have 16 companies, 6 members of the Fund I Board of Advisors, and lots of sleepless nights to show for it. What a roller coaster of a year.
So where does that leave VHS? Well, we’ll be tying up a few loose ends on the portfolio this summer, and start kicking some tires for raising Fund II. But now, we’re focusing a lot on the fun stuff. Events like Consumer Brews, various industry dinners, and actually getting out on the road to see the portfolio (which will require a LOT of stops from Austin, LA, SF, and Aspen to Portland, Toronto, Ohio, and Atlanta) and other friends!
On the OMP front, we had our Spring Gala in April, and it was a smashing success! We’ll have more events and opportunities to grow the organization, and if you’re ever interested in learning more and/or getting involved, ping me!
What are you currently excited about?
To say that I’m incredibly grateful that the consumer ecosystem accepted me and VHS is an understatement. But with that gratefulness, I’m also still nervous, because I truly don’t know if all of the consumer investor vets will truly accept me.
One constant that has been key for my growth during the last decade of my career in the consumer startup and VC worlds has been that everyone has been approachable. But I still can’t help getting FOMO when I see other major events, summits, and meetups happening where I didn’t receive any invites. It’s silly to feel this way, I know, but it’s also a habit I truly will never be able to shake off.
I shared this worry with another investor I recently caught up with. He understood how I felt (he’s been in the industry a little longer than me) and offered a wonderful suggestion: “Build your own table.” While I push that quote into the stratosphere, it’s a good reminder that when you feel excluded from the club, just build a cooler one!
One more fun story on this topic: I was recently at an INCREDIBLE dinner that longtime friend and wonderful human Manica Blain hosted for consumer investors and LPs, where I saw so many old friends (including a bunch who started their careers in venture the same time as me and are now running their own or are partners at major funds!) and made some great new ones, but one person who I’ve been playing meetup tag with is Elly Truesdell, who started New Fare Partners with Hallie Bonnar (H, if you’re reading this, we’ll also hang in BK - and hopefully at Fontainhas - with E this summer!).
Elly basically ran the entire buying arm of Whole Foods and spearheaded many of its innovation projects. She then started the cat food startup Made By Nacho with Bobby Flay, and was even a partner at the hospitality and CPG investment firm Almanac. New Fare is one of the best food & beverage investment firms out there…and Elly admitted to me that she never truly felt like she fit in to the investor ecosystem.
Another reminder that I wasn’t alone in my feelings, that incredible and venerable forces in the consumer world like ELLY also felt the same frustrations.
So…let’s keep building that table.
What’s a story or article that you're currently thinking about?
I recently got re-introduced to writer Tom Bissell’s 2018 Esquire essay on raising a daughter. Any father, especially fathers of daughters, should read it, but it’s a poignant piece in light of Father’s Day just recently passing through.
The most poignant takeaway from it (and there are a lot), is this:
To raise a son is to teach him how to master his world while knowing he’ll get hurt. Raising a daughter can and should be about that, too, with the added trick of making her aware that the world will seek to hurt her in far subtler ways.
The little boy’s mastery will be applauded, but the little girl’s mastery will often be resisted.
What’s a product you’re currently obsessed with?
I’ve got two, sorry; I make the rules, so I can change them whenever. #dealwithit
One of my good friends, Yosh, and I are now members of the Classic Car Club, which doubles as the VHS Ventures office. (If anyone wants to come by and check it out with me over a coffee, ping me!) They have a bunch of member events, including a watch club, showcasing some of the coolest watches out there. Sure, there were a lot of awesome (and pricey) ones there, but Yosh’s and my favorite is an understated and unique one: the SEIKO Metronome Watch. I could go into all details on why it’s cool, but I’ll let the Fratello team do that.
Nitasha and I are O B S E S S E D with the body lotion from Scribner’s Catskills Lodge. The rosemary and mint aroma combined with a not-too-creamy, not-too-smooth texture is just…chef’s kiss.
Wild Card: What’s an item you can’t shake your mind off of?
As we get into the official early days of summer, it is more important than ever to protect our peace. In other words, it’s easy to get wrapped up on work without actually considering how full your own cup of energy is. If it’s consistently almost empty, you won’t be the best version of yourself to others (and especially to those you care about).
I definitely need to do better, almost to the point that I’ve been working on getting a tattoo of this cup of energy on my left arm for years. (It WILL happen soon, trust me.)
Need a starting point to figure out how full your cup is?
You can start with this solid read from the Primer team.
"Reputation is what people think of you. Character is what you are."
- Oxford, The King’s Man
~ C O L O P H O N ~
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