Zoe Leavitt

At Costanoa Ventures, we pride ourselves on identifying and supporting exceptional founders poised to create impactful, lasting change. Hona is a shining example, driven by a trio of extremely talented founders: Manny Griffiths, Joshua Christensen, and Matt McClellan. They each bring unique, differentiated expertise to the table, and Amy Cheetham and I are extremely excited to partner with them. There are approximately 450,000 law firms in the United States, with half of those firms being B2C - think personal injury, mass tort, or immigration law as opposed to BigLaw. One of the reasons we love how Hona is tackling this market is their focus on B2C law firms and product excellence - B2B firms are historically difficult to sell brand new software products into, but B2C firms are completely different buyers. Oftentimes there's just a handful of lawyers and paralegals in a partnership, and any piece of technology they can use to give them an edge would be valuable. 44% of negative Google reviews on law firms directly reference poor communication as the reason for a negative experience, and the number 1 reason for Attorney Bar complaints in the U.S. is "lack of communication". On the lawyer's side, attorneys, paralegals and legal assistants spend an average of 7.4 hours per week on unnecessary updates, redundant communication, and activities that aren't directly contributing towards getting a client's case solved. Manny and the team at Hona are working to change all of that. Hona delivers a tightly-integrated communications platform to help facilitate better communication between law firms and their clients. During legal proceedings, client communications tend to be a large resource-stressor for law firms. Clients will frequently call firms for case updates, legal explanations, or general administrative questions that tend to eat away at firm resources without providing any additional progress toward case resolution. Hona exists to ease that burden - it’s a platform that allows law firms to efficiently communicate with their clients over text, easily build customizable web pages and embed videos, and share information on case status and basic legal process education. This crucial communication processes allow attorneys to focus on their job – moving cases forward, while keeping their clients informed and educated. If you're a lawyer dealing with these problems - don't hesitate to reach out to us or the Hona team! It's a privilege to work with Hona on this journey. The company has been growing at a rapid pace, and they're delivering meaningful technology to help people get through legal proceedings in a much more fluid, transparent, and easy process. Manny, Joshua, and Matt are exceptional founders whose combined skills and dedication to continuous learning position them perfectly to lead Hona to success. They're just getting started, and we can't wait to see what they'll achieve.

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I’ve had 3 journalists reach out this week looking for perspective on the “state of CPG”. The underlying question seems to be: how bad is it? My thoughts: things were easier in 2020, 2021. Yes, capital was widely available. But the consumer was also ripe and ready to spend on goods (more time at home, stimulus checks, and new exposure to CPG through social channels). Acquisition costs were lower. Maybe most importantly there was a general sense of optimism, and a belief, that brands could grow to be big and category-leading (no matter how much $ they were losing), with less consideration for fundamentals. Goes without saying, there’s been a major shift in sentiment from investors and retailers - now more cynical - and we’re coming down from an intense high. It can’t be overstated just how much of a hangover we’re experiencing. It's not only harder to grow and sustain your business (in major contrast to 2 years ago) but it’s, arguably, not as fun. So many people have lost the belief that you can build something out of nothing, create a habit that was never there before, become indispensable in people’s lives without them even knowing they needed it (hi, Bachan's). The hangover clarifies what always mattered: fundamentals, resilience, discipline, patience. And the founders that will win are those that work through the short-term pessimism, double down on their value proposition, and execute. Shout out to Athletic Brewing Co. as a great example of resilience and category definition throughout the boom and bust.

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Impactful Biz, Ops & Investment Roles at Early Startups & VCs: • Chief of Staff to Ex. Head of Product at Google • Founding GTM at the most YC product used by other YC companies in the past four years • Chief of Staff to a Partner at a Top-Tier VC Fund • Head of Platform of a NY State Backed Accelerator • Investment Associate at a Seed Stage Fund Investing in Category-Defining Companies • Partner at a Defense-Focused VC Fund • Chief Revenue Officer of a New Space Company in El Segundo • Venture Capital Analyst at a fund investing in overlooked geographies • Investment Associate at a Spirit-Focused Fund • Strategy & Ops Lead at a Company Focused on Helping Improve Autism • Senior Product Manager at a Company Focused on Building Shopify for Content Creators • Program Manager for a Space Security Company • Open-ended Investment Position at a Top-Tier Accelerator • Biz & Ops Lead for One of the Most Loved Digital Consumer Products 💸 All companies are well-funded and backed by top-tier investors. ⬇ You can find links to the roles above, plus many more, in the comments.

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Many seed stage companies funded in 2020/2021 most likely won't make it to Series A these days. Over the last few months I watched two seed stage founders I invested in find buyers for their companies and successfully return cash to investors. In both cases the situations were dire and in both cases their existing lead investors were totally MIA. The reality for most VCs is that their best performing companies typically need their help the *the least* and the struggling ones are where it's essential to step up. For VC's, word travels fast when you aren't there to help. And for founders, working with investors who will be there when the chips are down is more important than ever.

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Fellow CPG founders: Any suggestions on lenders that you have enjoyed working with? Wake Up Water is entirely ecommerce at this time so we don’t have your typical accounts receivable, which makes it more tricky for lenders I’ve spoken to a bunch - there’s all types of models they come up with I’d like to avoid any cash advances where we pay back a percentage of sales (these end up being a crazy high APR) Any suggestions on quality lenders would be greatly appreciated! #funding #lenders #financing

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Shared some thoughts with Pear VC on how we think about marketing at immi, crazy experiments we've tried since the early days, and some of our marketing processes that have helped us scale. Thanks for being in our corner! https://lnkd.in/gBAkTUzH #brand #marketing

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Could a retail model like Foxtrot work at scale? What's the future of plant-based meat? How should CPG brands think about channel strategy? On the latest The Consumer VC, I chatted with Ashley Hartman & Andrew Bluestein from Bluestein Ventures. Bluestein Ventures invests in the future of food. Some of their early investments includes New Culture, meati™, Vive Organic, Bizzy® Cold Brew, Foxtrot. They are fresh off raising a $45 million fund 3. We discuss: • Going from family office to VC • Differences & similarities investing in inventory and technology businesses • Could the Foxtrot model work at scale and be venture backed? • Retail Reinvention and the Future of Convenience Stores • Future of plant based meat and food tech • Trends in food industry digitization & much more To listen and be the first to know when a new episode drops, subscribe in the comments 👇👇👇 #food #podcast #venturecapital #fundraising #futureoffood #CPG #retail

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Summary: Industry Ventures has raised a $900 million early-stage hybrid fund for investing in emerging managers and directly backing growth-stage companies. This is their seventh hybrid fund and is larger than their previous one. The fund will be split between backing VC funds, direct investments, and acquiring stakes from emerging managers. Key takeaways: Smaller, newer funds are finding it more difficult to raise capital, but this fund from Industry Ventures offers hope for emerging managers. The fund will be split between various investments, including backing VC funds and buying secondary interests. Industry Ventures may have an advantage due to their ability to invest in both emerging and more established managers. Counter arguments: Some may argue that it is still difficult for emerging managers to raise funds. The success of Industry Ventures may not be indicative of the overall climate for emerging managers. #venturecapital #venture #startups #fundraising

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What I learned this week…. About eight years ago, I had dinner with one of the ABCD CEOs on a snowy night in Greenwich, Connecticut. I wondered aloud, “Might changing consumer preferences in Food is Health unravel the ABCD franchise permanently?” In that world, farmers would take more control of processing, vertically integrate, and contract more directly with CPGs/grocery. Milling and transportation would need to be a commodity. Crazy, I know. But maybe not when we try to eliminate the $1.9T spent on the healthcare cost of poor nutrition. 1) A startup is forming virtual regenerative Co-Ops and successfully disintermediating ADM, Bunge, Cargill, and Dreyfus (ABCD). It may be ephemeral or the start of a Creative Destruction cycle. I will likely scale 100x before ABCD sees the threat coming. Even at higher costs, it works because it creates new downstream value. 2) We probably need data from at least 1M acres of production farmland to train a data set that illuminates the linkage between crop inputs/practices and variability in nutritional density. (educated guess). 3) Near term, it likely makes more sense to understand the linkage of nutrient density and crops in heritage grains, wheat, barley, and crops other than corn/soy. Improving nutrient density has more marginal value for users of these grains because they are trying to optimize other factors like alcohol production. 4) Can Kraft Heinz's new CEO, a professed health nut, transform his business with Kaft’s core competencies alone? Or will Kraft need to master the supply chain to engineer quality, nutrient-dense, healthy options? I think I know the answer. 5) Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis may be tied to microbiome imbalance. With further linkage to HRV/vagus nerve. Triggered by an infection destabilizing the microbiome. Possible treatment using checkpoint (PD-1) inhibitors. Philip Strandwitz 6) We need to examine Heart Rate Variability (HRV) more as a key biomarker. Especially the link between stress, microbiome, and metabolic health. 7) If seed, spray, and other mechanical/electromagnetic/directed energy weed control improves, will some farmers pursue crop rotations they avoided because those alternatives lack “Roundup Ready” traits? SwarmFarm Robotics 8) Life insurance agents are buying medical tailored meals for their clients. The only institution that really wants you to live forever is life insurance Erin Martin, MASM 9) On week 2 of the Prolon Fast (one week every month), I am down another 7 lbs. I lost fat, not muscle mass. I will have blood work and a DEXA scan after the next fast. Day 5 is hard. 10) I can’t have a meal with friends without the topic turning to diet and health. The latent desire for Food is Health, driven partly by the Ozempic option, is a largely untapped market set to disrupt CPG and ABCD. #foodishealth Ellen Brown Katie Stebbins Brad Fruth Salar Shemirani Carlos Abrams-Rivera

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The quality of consumer founders out fundraising right now is really impressive. Very smart folks coming out of big companies offering less-than-great consumer experiences are seeking to build better solutions, in everything from fintech to consumer social to digital health. If there's one thing I've learned since joining Bullish it's that there are plenty of opportunities to do better by consumers and met their needs with new or reimagined solutions. It's exciting to see this generation of builders take what's worked from previous-wave consumer companies and develop fixes for what was broken and build more sustainably. Very cool things ahead! #consumer

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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!

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Want a front-row seat to the frontier of tech? We’ve got the role (or two) for you! We’re expanding our frontier-tech team at Blackbird by hiring a Frontier Tech Investments Associate and Foundry Fellows! Got questions? We've got answers... 1️⃣ What are the roles? 🧪 Associate = a full-time VC investment gig in our Blackbird Investments team, working directly with me. We’re looking for someone with a science and/or engineering background and more curiosity than they can handle. You’ll grow your own investment brand and practice, support our portfolio founders, and will help build Foundry, our early-stage frontier-tech accelerator. ✨ Foundry Fellow = a casual/contract gig in our Blackbird Investments team, ~15h per week for 3 months. The Fellowship is ideal for PhD students and ECRs who want to learn more about startups and VC. You’ll go deep on emerging areas relevant to your expertise (or curiosity!), get a front-row seat to groundbreaking companies in those areas, build out your non-academic network, and develop a solid writing practice. 2️⃣ Why are you hiring? We love frontier tech, and we’re ready to grow our team. 3️⃣ Wow, it’s so great that you’re starting to look at deep tech! Look, we get it: we don’t make a lot of noise about our frontier tech investing. Buuuut we’ve been deep-tech investors since we backed Tim Kentley-Klay to found Zoox back in 2014—we’ve been on incredible journeys with PsiQuantum (building the world's first utility-scale quantum computer right here in Australia!), Inventia Life Science (transforming drug discovery with high-fidelity cell models), Remedy Robotics (surgical robots for remote endovascular procedures), Opto Biosystems (minimally-invasive neural implants to treat cancer), and more. We believe that frontier technologies, and great frontier-tech investing, will be part of the solutions to the greatest problems humanity faces today. 4️⃣ When do applications close? May 31st at 11:59pm AEST. 5️⃣ I have more questions! I’m sure you do! Clare Birch and I are hosting an AMA to answer any and all questions about these roles. Want to know what a week in the life of our team looks like? What’s keeping us up at night? What our ideal candidate looks like? Come along and find out - registration link in the comments 👇 Apply for these roles: Associate - https://lnkd.in/gCfj4EUJ Foundry Fellowships - https://lnkd.in/gj6ATZVZ If you know anyone that we should meet, send me their details! Cameron Elise Ben Andrew Robin Joseph Adelaide James Olivia Lucinda Raghav Jesse Christie Mohamed Tom Amee Pablo Haya Loong Hon Joshua Benjamin Megan Harry Denzil Matthew Diana Daniel Tom Deanna Justin Amar Lilly Stone Thomas

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🚀 How do you get a pre-seed or seed round done *quickly* in NYC? ✅ Assemble a list of over 80 of the earliest-stage fund and angel investors in town ✅ Curate a dozen or so of them based on relevancy ✅ Break bread together. That's what nextNYC is doing with Checkwriters--and applications are OPEN. We're looking for pre-seed and seed NYC founders to pitch at our dinner next Wednesday night. The only criteria is that you have to have at least one *professional* investor committed to a currently open round--be it a fund, angel, scout, etc. 🗓 Applications are due *this Thursday*: https://lnkd.in/epJjny4P 🤝 Shoutout to the folks at Orrick Tech and Rho for helping to make this happen: Orrick is a tech-focused law firm passionate about helping entrepreneurs, innovators and investors push boundaries. Through our extensive client portfolio, deal volume, and relationships in the ecosystem, we provide commercial insight to each client’s strategy. From financing to protecting IP to retaining talent to advocating for innovation-friendly public policy, we offer a holistic solution across the tech & venture lifecycle. Rho is the business banking platform with everything founders need to manage their company cash and grow their business. See how they are supporting founders in NYC (https://lnkd.in/ef7uzDQv) – and earn rewards for switching your operating account to Rho.

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Exciting News for CPG Founders! Aurora James has launched a not-to-be-missed podcast series for CPG founders called Friends and Family. The debut episode features Emma Grede sharing invaluable insights from her experiences running SKIMS, Good American, and Safely. Imagine having coffee or cocktails with an amazing VC and CEO, where you not only have fun but also gather actionable advice on topics like developing your employee development approach across the stages of your company's growth. Special Highlight: Eva Chen, Instagram's Head of Fashion Brand Partnerships, graces the episode with stellar advice for brands aiming to boost their social media strategies and enhance their online presence. Pro Tip for CPG Brands from the Podcast: Community is key! Dive deep into engagement by sharing your brand’s journey, including the highs and lows. Authenticity and personal connection should drive your content strategy. Don't chase perfection—aim for connection. Experiment with different Instagram formats like Stories and Reels to discover what truly resonates with your audience. Remember, your followers are more than just numbers; they are your community. Listen, engage, and grow together.   Have you listened to the episode? Let's connect! I'd love to hear how emerging brands and founders are leveraging and implementing these strategies.  

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This past month the MGMT Boston Operators Club passed 50 members. I'm so excited that the solution to the problem I've been trying to solve is beginning to take shape.. When I moved back to Boston from SF... I found it really hard to find what *great* startups were building locally Everyone I'd worked with professionally from the past decade was out on the West Coast. My work hadn't traveled very far. It was locked inside of companies and too small a circle of relationships. This is a problem SO many operators deal with. I know it firsthand. And you don't need a solution to either until you really need it! So what are we building? The *best* startup community and set of resources for who & what is here and what makes Boston a great startup town A dedicated way to build relationships outside of your day to day job A content distribution lever that grows every single week A network extension of awesome VC partners (more to say here later!) that will be leveraging our community for help with their prospects & portfolio companies I think if you're an emerging leader who plans to build a long career in startups in Boston... You'd be crazy not to join. Life comes at you fast. A lot changes in <2 years!!

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On my trip to NYC a few weeks ago — I ordered a few meals from Uber Eats & these meals made me think about how different the food delivery ecosystem is there -- compared to 🇮🇳. → In the US — your food arrives as fast as a Zepto/Blinkit Order, but it comes with a bill that makes you wonder if you paid for the delivery guy's lunch too 😂–– you can get hit with an extra $5, $7, or even $10 per order for delivery alone. In India, labor is cheap = delivery charges ⬇ (even though we crib about it big time!) → One big difference I noticed = HOW the delivery happens. Out there, most of the deliveries are done on cycles – both motorized & manual, while in India, it’s mostly scooters & bikes. → Their Apps are advanced I felt–– they have more features than what we see on Zomato/Swiggy everyday. & their Apps have the highest ETA accuracy…..not like my lunch yesterday - which showed “Arriving in 10 minutes” for over 15+ minutes. (I don’t blame the platforms — Our infra & route planning impacts the ETA, & the delivery networks relies more on manual processes–– causing delays) → Labor dynamics are another very big difference - Like Uber drivers, most of the Uber Delivery guys are independent contractors & not employees….though I feel India’s already got there - most of our delivery fleets in big cities are also GIG. (While employees get to earn more - but the model lacks employee benefits & job security) Super interesting to see how the same food delivery model has different operating designs in different geographies. PS: I’ve never been able to figure out - why UberEats & FoodPanda have done well in other geographies, but weren’t able to crack the Indian Market…..did they not localise the PlayBooks? PPS: Another prediction: Delivery Charges will grow to ~INR 100/Order in the next 3 years — we’re on the same track as other rich + growing economies. #FoodDelivery #India

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Today, Two Chairs announces $72M of new funding to continue building a world where everyone has access to exceptional mental health care. Since late 2017, when Maveron led the Two Chairs Series A, the need for mental health services has grown considerably as our society has become lonelier and more isolated than ever. At the same time, our culture’s willingness to openly acknowledge these challenges is greater than ever. Sadly, the rapid growth of Two Chairs affirms the fact that our society is in desperate need of better mental health support. Two Chairs has built a business that believes clinical quality is the defining characteristic of success. Alex Katz has always emphasized the paramountcy of measurement-based clinical outcomes, which the team works tirelessly to achieve. In the process, Two Chairs has illustrated that embracing the ‘move fast and break things’ mentality doesn’t always work. Instead, Two Chairs opted for a different approach: they went slow to go fast. They built a proprietary algorithm that matches patients with the perfect therapist at the onset and hired a team of W2 clinicians oriented toward providing the highest quality care available. Even as the Two Chairs team has grown, their culture has remained small. This has enabled more intimate relationships within the team and between clients and clinicians. Reflecting on this milestone brings me back to the founding of Maveron and the values we hold dear. In 1998, my friend Howard Schultz and I founded Maveron to help entrepreneurs build companies that improve the lives of everyday people—their employees and their customers. There is perhaps no better example of this than Two Chairs. *** Thank you to TechCrunch's Marina Temkin, CFA for the great write-up. https://tcrn.ch/4aMt7yG

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We believe in extreme vetting of our founders. You can't build a unicorn if you spend time on silly stuff, like seeing family and friends. Grow up, and focus on investor returns. #vc #startups #investment

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We are making more money that we ever have DTC. And it hasn’t taken a second of my time. As I shared a couple days ago, we started to implement a few key tools into our DTC strategy and they are proving to be two of the most valuable things we’ve done to date. I posted about the first tool a couple days ago, but the second key piece of our short-stack has been Chargeflow. A true gift from the DTC gods above. For a refresher, it’s essentially an automation process for all chargebacks, and no it’s not too good to be true. It’s quite literally that good, and that simple. Here’s the thing with our DTC strategy- we’re a small team. We have 4 full time employees managing 2000+ retail doors, marketing, ops, sales, etc- so we try to keep things as simple as possible, and not just add a fancy new tool unless its an absolute no brainer. Thus far, they’ve won 100% of the chargebacks we’ve had from sneaky customers trying to claim they "never received product", and it’s working on autopilot. If your team is anything like me/Toto (aka small and mighty lol), and you’re looking for a no-brainer tool to make more money with 0 work required, this might just be a perfect solution. Look- I know there is no rulebook or guide to “how to build a successful business”, but I as always, I will continue to share what’s working/not working on my own journey— because I genuinely believe its how we get better together. One little tool, one honest piece of advice at a time. If you have any questions or want an intro to their team- shoot me a note. If this helps one person, it’s a win in my book. ❤️ #leadership #entrepreneurship #dtc

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