Welcome to The Edge, hosted by MGR. The Edge is a weekly show that airs every Friday highlighting the latest trends in tech, business, and life. We take deep dives on tech news, business strategies, and how to implement them. Tune in every week to this unique audio experience!Read more »
Welcome to The Edge, hosted by MGR. The Edge is a weekly show that airs every Friday highlighting the latest trends in tech, business, and life. We take deep dives on tech news, business strategies, and how to implement them. Tune in every week to this unique audio experience!Read Less
[Rebroadcast] David Gil speaks with KarenHowland (@KarenHowland2). She is a Managing Director and General Partner at CircleUp, a $125M fund focused on investing in emerging consumer brands. They discuss many things, including the most common traits of successful startup CPGs , why big CPGs are failing and what they can do to turn it around, why the opportunity for new consumer brands has never been greater, and how CircleUp uses incredible amounts of data to identify high growth sectors and emerging companies.Full Show Notes(1:36) - About Karen & CircleUp(3:23) - What Helio is, and how it works.(8:06) - Why are big CPG companies failing, and why have they not been able to adapt to market changes?(12:21) - Are there any big CPGs doing it right?(13:41) - Will we ever see a new multi-billion dollar product like Coke or Pepsi ever again?(17:22) - Why are there so few CPG focused funds like CircleUp?(20:23) - How much does CircleUp balance valuing the product idea vs investing in the person running the company?(26:30) - Is retail here to stay, or are its days numbered?(28:19) - How CircleUp thinks about Amazon(30:43) - What's the right balance of DTC vs selling on Amazon and in stores?(34:58) - When should a company expand their product line vs when should they focus all-in on one product?Check our other stuff out too:The EdgeInstagramFacebookLinkedInMediumTwitterMGRAgency.com