Consumer VC: Venture Capital I B2C Startups I Commerce | Early-Stage Investing I Brands | Technology

Glimpse is the all-in-one, AI-powered deductions management platform for CPG brands—automating deduction capture, classification, disputes, and accounting. Recover more revenue while saving time – ⁠https://www.tryglimpse.com

Retail is tough—but the hidden costs make it brutal.

In this episode, Mike chats with Akash Raju, Co-Founder and CEO of Glimpse, the AI-powered platform helping consumer brands recover lost revenue from retail deductions. If you sell through Amazon, Target, UNFI, or KeHE, you’re probably losing up to 5% of revenue to invalid deductions—fees that can quietly eat into your bottom line.

Akash breaks down what’s really going on behind the curtain of retail deductions, how Glimpse is helping brands win back hundreds of thousands in lost revenue, and why automation is transforming how finance teams manage trade spend, supply chain fees, and compliance.

You’ll learn:
✅ What makes retail so expensive for brands
✅ The hidden “deduction” ecosystem no one talks about
✅ How top CPG brands lose 5%+ of their revenue without realizing it
✅ Which deductions are worth fighting—and which aren’t
✅ How AI is changing the game for brand finance teams
✅ Why distributors like UNFI and KeHE are pain points for smaller brands✅ How Glimpse built a 91% deduction win rate
✅ When (and why) brands should start caring about deductions

👉 If you’re running a consumer brand—or heading into retail—this episode is an essential crash course in the economics most founders never see.

Timestamps
00:00 Intro
01:00 What Makes Retail So Expensive
03:00 How Glimpse Helps Brands Recover Lost Revenue
05:00 The Hidden World of Invalid Deductions
07:00 Why Deductions Are a Cross-Functional Headache
09:00 Building Glimpse: How Akash Found the Problem
12:00 Why UNFI and KeHE Are So Painful for Brands
15:00 How Retail Deductions Work (and What to Fight)
18:00 How Glimpse Uses AI to Recover Revenue
21:00 The Power Imbalance Between Retailers and Brands
24:00 Can Deductions Ever Be Fully Automated?
27:00 The Financial Blind Spots in Retail
30:00 How Different Categories Get Hit Harder
33:00 Expanding Glimpse Across Retailers: Target, Walmart, Amazon36:00 When Brands Should Start Focusing on Deductions
39:00 The Categories With the Highest Invalid Deductions

📬 Subscribe for more founder stories & scaling insights:
👉 The Consumer VC Newsletter - https://www.theconsumervc.com/
Follow Mike Gelb:
Twitter / IG / TikTok → @mikegelb / @consumervc

Glimpse is the all-in-one, AI-powered deductions management platform for CPG brands—automating deduction capture, classification, disputes, and accounting. Recover more revenue while saving time – https://www.tryglimpse.com

He’s one of the most respected investors in beauty and wellness—and he’s seen every boom, bust, and bubble the industry has gone through.

In this episode, Mike sits down with Rich Gersten, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of True Beauty Ventures, a beauty and wellness–focused investment firm built by operators for founders. Rich has spent over 20 years investing in consumer brands—from early private equity days at North Castle Partners to launching True Beauty Ventures, one of the most influential early-stage funds in the category.

Rich shares how he accidentally stumbled into beauty investing, what makes the category so resilient, and why he believes the “beauty bubble” is finally normalizing. He also opens up about the reality of early-stage investing, the rise (and decline) of celebrity brands, and what he’s learned from building a beauty-focused fund from scratch.

You’ll learn:
✅ Why beauty and personal care outperform other consumer categories
✅ How Sephora and Ulta transformed the entire retail landscape
✅ The biggest mistakes founders make when scaling beauty brands
✅ How True Beauty Ventures approaches early-stage investing
✅ Why most celebrity brands fail (and what makes Rhode different)
✅ What’s really happening in beauty M&A and why exits have slowed
✅ How Rich thinks about valuation discipline and pro-rata investing
✅ Why execution—not product—is the #1 differentiator

👉 If you’re a founder, operator, or investor in beauty or consumer, this episode offers a rare inside look at what it really takes to build and back the next breakout brand.

Timestamps
00:00 Intro
01:20 How Rich Got Into Beauty Investing
04:00 What Makes Beauty Unique vs. Other Consumer Categories
07:00 Sephora, Ulta, and the Rise of Specialty Retail
08:30 Why Rich Started True Beauty Ventures
11:00 How They Add Value Beyond Capital
13:00 The Difference Between Private Equity and Early Stage
15:00 Lessons from Fund I & II: Check Sizes, Risk, and Returns
19:00 The “Back Up the Truck” Investment Strategy
22:00 How True Thinks About Pro-Rata and Founder Relationships
25:00 Sephora & Ulta: Still Essential or Optional?
28:00 The $5M Revenue Trap (and Why Early Might Be Better)
31:00 How True Evaluates a Brand’s Potential
34:00 Outbound vs. Inbound Deal Flow
37:00 The Real Economics of Beauty
40:00 Why Luxury Skincare Is Failing
42:00 Amazon’s Surprising Role in Beauty
44:00 The Problem With Celebrity Brands
47:00 Why Rhode Worked—and Others Didn’t
50:00 Returns, Risk, and How Beauty VC Actually Works
55:00 The M&A Slowdown: Too Many Sellers, Not Enough Buyers
01:00:00 The Future of Beauty Exits and Strategic Buyers
01:03:00 Makeup’s M&A Problem Explained
01:05:00 Valuations, Prefs, and Founder Pitfalls
01:06:30 Book Picks: Outlive by Peter Attia & Founder Stories in Beauty

📬 Subscribe for more founder stories & scaling insights:
👉 The Consumer VC Newsletter - https://www.theconsumervc.com/

Follow Mike Gelb:Twitter / IG / TikTok → @mikegelb / @consumervc

Glimpse is the all-in-one, AI-powered deductions management platform for CPG brands—automating deduction capture, classification, disputes, and accounting. Recover more revenue while saving time – ⁠https://www.tryglimpse.com

What happens when a venture investor builds inside one of the world’s most consumer-obsessed ecosystems?

In this episode, Mike sits down with Joe Seager, Partner at True, a multi-stage investment and advisory platform that’s redefining what a consumer-specialist VC can be.

Before True, Joe spent five years working alongside Sir Richard Branson at Virgin, helping launch ventures across autonomous vehicles, fintech, and digital banking—giving him a front-row seat to innovation at global scale.

Joe shares what he learned from working inside Virgin’s founder-driven culture, what makes True’s vertically integrated model so unique, and how he’s seeing consumer venture evolve across Europe.

You’ll learn:

✅ What it was really like working with Richard Branson

✅ How True’s “multi-stage” structure gives founders an unfair advantage

✅ Why Europe’s venture landscape is so fragmented—and where it’s winning

✅ How Brexit changed the flow of capital, LPs, and cross-border investing

✅ What consumer categories are still venture-backable (and which aren’t)

✅ The truth about power-law outcomes in consumer investing

✅ Why AI will reshape—not replace—the future of consumer brands

✅ The founder traits Joe looks for when writing a first check

👉 If you’re a founder, operator, or investor curious about the intersection of consumer, venture, and Europe’s next wave of innovation, this episode is packed with insight from one of the most thoughtful voices in VC.

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

00:40 What It Was Like Working With Richard Branson

03:00 The Moment Joe Fell in Love With Venture

05:00 Why He Joined True & What Makes It Different

07:00 Inside True’s Multi-Stage Model (VC + PE + Public + Advisory)

09:00 How the Ecosystem Helps Founders Win

12:00 Leveraging True’s Corporate Network for Startups

15:00 True’s Split: B2B vs. B2C Investments

16:00 How Europe’s Venture Scene Differs From the U.S.

18:00 The Rise of Sweden, Estonia & the Nordics

22:00 How Brexit Reshaped Capital Flows in Venture

26:00 LP Structures: Why Europe Lags Behind the U.S.

28:00 The Need to Unlock Pension Capital in the UK

31:00 How Brexit Changed Startup Global Expansion

35:00 Is Consumer Still Venture-Backable?

38:00 Building Venture-Scale Consumer Brands

41:00 Why Now Might Be the Best Time to Invest in Consumer

43:00 How True Thinks About AI in Consumer

47:00 New Consumer Categories AI Is Unlocking

49:00 How Europe Differs Culturally From the U.S.

51:00 What Joe Looks for in Founders

54:00 The “Jockey vs. Horse” Debate in Early Stage VC

57:00 Why True Avoids Vice Categories

59:00 Book Picks: James Dyson Autobiography & The Technology Trap

📬 Subscribe for more founder stories & venture insights: 👉 The Consumer VC Newsletter - https://www.theconsumervc.com/ 

Follow Mike Gelb: Twitter / IG / TikTok → @mikegelb / @consumervc

Glimpse is the all-in-one, AI-powered deductions management platform for CPG brands—automating deduction capture, classification, disputes, and accounting. Recover more revenue while saving time – ⁠https://www.tryglimpse.com

He helped scale JUUL from $1M to $1B in just three years. Now, he’s investing in the next generation of consumer brands.

In this episode, Mike sits down with Alex Cantwell, founder of Cartograph Ventures, an early-stage technology and consumer fund built by operators for operators. Alex shares what it was really like to scale one of the most controversial startups in the world—and what he learned about hypergrowth, backlash, regulation, and leadership along the way.

You’ll learn:

✅ How JUUL went from failure to billion-dollar rocket ship

✅ Why vape shops—not gas stations—became JUUL’s secret weapon

✅ What founders get wrong about retail expansion

✅ The dark side of hypergrowth and founder burnout

✅ Why “disruption” always invites controversy

✅ How operator-investors think differently about building vs. funding

✅ The future of vice categories: nicotine, caffeine, and beyond

✅ Why fiber might be the next big consumer trend

👉 If you want to understand how to build a disruptive brand, survive a backlash, and think like an operator-investor—this conversation is packed with hard-won lessons.

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:00 From Wharton to JUUL: The Accidental Entry Point

03:00 Why JUUL Failed in Gas Stations

05:00 Finding Early Adopters in Vape Shops

07:00 Rethinking Retail & Route to Market

09:00 The Fallacy of “Instant Scale” with Big Retail

11:00 Lessons from Hypergrowth Inside JUUL

13:00 The Psychological Cost of Scaling Too Fast

15:00 What JUUL Got Right (and Wrong)

17:00 Should JUUL Have Been Banned?

19:00 Why Every Disruptive Brand Becomes a Lightning Rod

21:00 How Operator VCs Think Differently from Traditional Investors

25:00 The Real Difference Between Operators and Financial Investors

30:00 Betting on Regulated Categories (and Knowing When to Walk Away)

33:00 The Nicotine Pouch Boom: Zen vs. JUUL

36:00 Is Nicotine in a Harm Reduction Era?

38:00 Nicotine vs. Caffeine: The Mental Shift

41:00 Why Venture Has Become Hits-Driven

43:00 The “Cowboy Diet”: Protein, Nicotine & Caffeine

45:00 The Future of Consumer: Simplicity, Identity, and Less Friction

48:00 When to Go Deep vs. Broad in Retail

50:00 What Great Founders Do Differently

53:00 Why Operator-Led Funds Push Founders Harder

56:00 The Real Bubble in AI (and What Comes Next)

60:00 Underrated Categories: Why Fiber Might Be the Next Big Thing

63:00 Lightning Round: Lessons, Regrets & Fast Food Favorites

📬 Subscribe for more founder stories & scaling insights: 👉 The Consumer VC Newsletter - https://www.theconsumervc.com/

Follow Mike Gelb:

Twitter / IG / TikTok → @mikegelb / @consumervc