The State of Retail Venture Capital: Challenges and Opportunities with Karl Bracken

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Hello, everyone.

I'm one of your co hosts for today's interview, Chris Walton.

And I'm Ann Mazinga.

And today we are bringing you something new.

We are debuting what we hope will be a new regular series featuring investor perspectives on the retail and consumer goods industries.

And joining us for our inaugural episode is Carl Bracken, the CEO and founder of Ocampo Capital.

Carl, thank you for joining us, and welcome to Omnitalk on what is a maiden voyage.

Yeah, thank you guys so much for having me.

It's.

I feel so honored to be part of this, and it's amazing what you guys have built.

So thanks for having me.

Thank you, man.

Yeah, Carl and I.

Carl, we go.

We go way back, you know?

We do.

We cut our teeth at Target right around the same time.

Started like, 2000.

You started 2004, right?

2004.

2000.

And I was 2005, if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah, I started as an intern in 2003, but full time in 2004.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My gosh.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was a long time ago.

Your OG, bullseye people.

That's for sure.

Don't even go there, Chris.

It doesn't help the situation.

You just gotta.

It was 2004.

Don't do the math right.

Do the math at home.

Well, Carl, I mentioned this as we were just getting ready for the show, but we're really thrilled to have you on board as part of the Omni talk retail family.

And I'd love for you to just kind of start by giving the audience a little bit of background on you and what Ocampo Capital sponsored specializes in, especially from a vc standpoint.

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

So I started my career, actually in finance at JPMorgan.

Worked in the venture capital group in San Francisco during the.com bubble, which was crazy.

It was great until it wasn't.

And I think one of the things I really learned from that was I needed operational experience.

I was in there advising companies, tech companies on the products that I had no idea what I was talking about, and kind of realized that if I was going to be a good investor, I needed to have operational experience and get some skill.

So.

So that's what made me go back to business school and what led me to target.

So, yeah, I came to target as an intern in 2003.

I was actually the first merch MBA intern they ever had.

So were you really?

I was, yeah.

So it was.

It was.

It was kind of a guinea pig experience, but, uh, but it was awesome.

Um, and lo and behold, you know, 15 years later, I was still there, and I loved my experience at target.

It gave me the opportunity kind of learn how to lead teams, how to manage large p and ls, how to develop big strategies, and then become an operational expert in a lot of different areas.

So, yeah, so my experience, as you guys know, was in merchandising and then inventory management and then supply chain and paying benefits.

I have to tell you guys, last night, as I was preparing for this, I was watching the news and what comes on the long Sherman strike on tv, and I just had a total flashback and got the heebie jeebies about, like, having to lead how we got containers out of the west coast ports during the port slowdown, like, ten years ago or whenever.

Right.

When it was on the other side of the country, right?

Yes, yes, yes.

Other side of the country now.

Yeah.

So I would be remiss if I didn't stop, stop for a second and give a shout out to all the inventory management folks out there and supply chain people that are dealing with this right now, because it's got to be horrifying.

So, anyway, so that was my target experience.

And then after that, I went and was kind of had a brief stint as coo at a beauty brand incubator, and then I was chief merchant and chief supply chain officer at Guitar center.

And then kind of decided to kind of bring it full circle to bring my retail and consumer background kind of together with my experience prior to that in venture capital.

And so I decided to build a company that would help a bunch of young consumer brands be able to scale faster operationally and to be better funded and that kind of thing.

And so I launched Ocampo Capital, and I mainly focused on businesses kind of in the consumable space, so early stage companies and beauty, pet, food and beverage, personal care categories like that.

And my goal is to be able to help them operationally and invest and help them scale faster.

Clay so, Carl, what I take away from that bio is its interesting that you started in finance, left, and then now went back into investing.

And knowing you as I do, I feel like investing has always been your thing.

It was always driving you.

I can remember working with you and you were always talking about the share price, like, you know, of target and other companies.

And so, so how, how much is this a passion for you?

And what do you think led you to come back full circle to start this again?

Honestly?

Yeah, you're right.

It has always been a passion for me.

Um, and I find it really interesting.

And I actually find the intersection between, like, consumer and, like, finance super fascinating.

Like, to me, it's, it's so interesting.

Um, you know, there's so many companies out there that need help.

There's so much opportunity, consumer, such a huge space, and yet there are so there are very few, you know, investors out there that also have, like, a consumer background.

And so to me, that's, you know, I love sort of the intersection between those two different disciplines and, you know, trying to help create things new within it.

I think that's what's so unique about you too, Carl.

Like the fact that you just as, you know, as an investor, that you're like, I need more operator experience.

I feel like that's a very rare thing to find because it's like you're, you know, you can only do so much looking at, you know, the same set of information that you're getting as an investment group that somebody else is getting as an investment group.

It's really that like marriage of the art and science of both of those things.

And having operator experience really feels like the way to kind of get that, that edge.

Well, I appreciate that.

I will say, you know, from where I was standing at the time, I felt like such a pretender that I felt like I needed it.

So it wasn't like it was this grand scheme.

It just kind of worked out that way.

But yes, you went where the water.

Was flowing, huh, Carl?

All right, that's great.

All right, well, let's, let's get in, let's get into why you're here, which is to get your perspectives on, on, on the retail industry and the consumer and consumerism at large, too, I think so.

So how would you sum up the state of the consumer and retail vc landscape right now?

What are your thoughts on it from a high level?

Yeah, I hate to say it, but now is, honestly, we're coming off probably the toughest time in the past decade for companies looking to raise funds.

It's really tough.

And there's several reasons for this.

One is so many venture investors have gotten kind of enamored with artificial intelligence that they are investing in that precluding any other kind of area of investment.

That is for sure a thing.

And it is crowding out consumer investment.

Secondly, I'd say is since the IPO market has been largely closed for the past few years, venture funds that have been around for a while can't get liquidity events to be able to reinvest in other new businesses.

And they can't raise new funds because of that.

It's frozen the market for early stage investing for a lot of venture funds out there.

Then the other thing id say is when interest rates started to rise, that put a cap for sure and slowed down demand in venture investment in total.

Now let me now talk about consumer venture investment.

Its actually tougher.

And unfortunately, that was just the standard.

That was just the standard base.

Casey, how were to double click even more.

Yeah, yeah.

So when you look at consumer venture capital, its even worse.

And the reason why is because a lot of venture firms got burned over the past few years investing in things like DTC, only businesses, which sounded great because the margins were great but couldn't scale.

Or secondly, like Amazon aggregators, there are a lot of Amazon aggregators out there that have gone by the wayside.

And then also even like social influencer brands, social influencer brands are really hit or miss.

And so if you pick the right one, it can be great.

But many kind of got burned on picking the wrong one.

I would say that's sort of the negative kind of case on where we currently are from an investment standpoint.

That said, venture funds that are focused on consumer and still focused on consumer, it's a really good time to be putting money to work.

There's still over 30,000 consumer companies being founded each year.

So there's tons of companies being founded.

And there's a lot of great companies out there that are having a hard time getting, getting funding.

And then putting aside all that nonsense and everything else, there are some consumer businesses out there right now that are raising funds that are going to be home run successes.

And if you look back through history, many of the biggest and best consumer brands were actually founded during major economic upheaval time.

So look at Apple, for instance.

Look at Procter and Gamble.

There's so many that fit that bill.

And I think this could be another of those times where these companies are being stressed in a tough fundraising environment, but they're going to come out way, way stronger.

Well, Carl, yeah, I mean, you got me thinking too.

Like while brands are having to work harder to get funding, it's not just as simple as like I got this great idea, we got this influencer on board.

Give me the cash.

Like how is that actually helping these companies, like, better prepare to go out and get funding in a way that maybe they weren't, you know, even five years ago?

I think they're being forced to go slow, to go fast, honestly.

And I think that's actually very, a very good thing.

It's forcing them to like make sure that they have their foundation in order before they start building the building on top of it.

And it really ensures that they have a really good thesis and a really sound business model before they go out and try to raise funding because it's just harder to get funding.

So if they are going out, they're likely going to withstand the heat a lot more than they would have otherwise.

That makes sense.

Carl, I want to ask you too.

You mentioned the DTC business, the Amazon aggregators.

I can remember Ann and I sitting here having discussions about like this felt, you mentioned the late nineties before the DTC rise.

Felt a little bit like the late nineties to us as we were sitting here because we're like, you know, you're hearing things like, oh, there's this brand tax that we don't, you know, that the companies are having to pay and, and therefore we can figure out how to go cheaper.

But yet you're forgetting all the supply chain economics to go with going DTC.

So, like, is your business model really that strong?

Like what are the lessons learned, you know, from, from the aggregators, from the DTC businesses, you know, over these last few years?

I mean, is it as simple as just like we should just all be going slow to go fast or is there more to it?

I think there's more to it.

But I would say that, you know, a couple of things.

One is, you're right, it is so similar to e commerce.

You know, and with, with e commerce, everyone knew e commerce was going to be big and that there was a huge opportunity there.

But, you know, I think the same thing with, with DTC brands.

I think DTC brands, it's an interesting model, but the pendulum swings so slowly in retail and you're talking about such a huge industry that to think that all of a sudden overnight everyone's going to go only to e commerce and that all retailers are going to go away.

Or on the other hand, with DTC, that you're going to be able to disintermediate every retailer and everyone's going to buy product on your own website.

They are way, way overextending the slowness with which, um, that's a good point.

These transitions occur.

The other thing I would say that people don't really understand is, you know, if you have a product and it is on shelf in, in major retailers, that's a billboard.

That is a, like a credibility driver for you.

And that's a real way to like, establish yourself.

Whereas, you know, if you have a website, you've put up, you have your brand on your own website, you know, what's to drive demand?

Like, how do people know that you're good, you know, and that's, I think, what, it's all on you and then it becomes a huge marketing play.

It becomes a huge, like, what's your roas know, like, how are you, you know, trying to optimize the algorithm and that, that isn't exactly a way to build a great long standing business.

It's a good way to like maybe drive short term revenue growth.

But, you know, if you really want to drive a business, like, you got to establish a business and establish a brand and establish all these things.

And retail does help a lot with that.

So I think there's, it's multifaceted, but I think the pendulum swings slowly and, you know, to get out over your skis with any trend, there will always be kind of a retrenchment.

Yeah.

Carl, I'd love for you to dive a little bit deeper.

Now that we have these consumer brands that are receiving funding that have gone slow, to go fast.

Can you explain a little bit what they're doing right and what that process for going out and raising money looks like?

Yeah, I think the first piece, Anne, is exactly what we just talked about as far as, like, get your foundation in order, like, have your business really locked down, you know, understand who your market is, understand, you know, how you plan on growing, understand what your long term path is as a company or what you want it to be.

Knowing that things always change.

But, you know, understanding that, I think, is really key.

I think once you know that the second thing that successful companies realize is going out and fundraising takes time.

Like, money does not fall out of trees right now.

And so, you know, because of that, you know, you have to take kind of the long game in, in fundraising.

And that means you're going to be talking to a lot of venture capitalists, not all are going to say yes.

In fact, the majority will definitely say no and then also recognize that due diligence takes a lot of time.

So from putting my venture capital hat on, if Im investing in a company, I want to know everything I possibly can know about this company because Im going to be investing in it for seven to ten years.

And I would say this is one of the biggest.

Yeah, it is.

And its one of the biggest differences from when I was working as a merchant is when you're a merchant, you're like, okay, this is a great product.

It could do well in my assortment over the next six months or twelve months or 18 months.

And that's all you cared about.

You didn't think about, is this business going to be viable ten years from now?

Whereas as an investor, that is the only thing that matters.

And so you have to be able to put out this sort of near term noise of what's the next hot whatever for the next six months.

And you have to really think about what's the long term sort of prognosis and health for this business.

And so that is part of why it's such a slow process for fundraising.

But early stage consumer businesses, I think, tend to underestimate how much time it takes.

And so you got to get that down.

And then I think the other piece I would recommend to any young consumer business is make sure you know who you're taking money from and make sure that the person, venture fund or whatever that you're partnering with is someone that you really believe in and someone that can really help you.

Because most of the time they're just like, we need money.

Like, who can give us money?

And that, okay, that's great, but you know, that, that, it's like, I think there's Adam Sandler movie where he's like, you know, I love money.

You have money, you know?

Right, okay.

You know, that's like prostituted themselves for money basically.

Yeah, that's kind of what you're saying.

Yeah, kind of, yeah.

And it's just not, you know, not good enough.

Like you really need to have a sense for, you know, why are you raising the money?

Are you raising it from someone who's really gonna be able to help you?

And what does that look like?

And I think the third thing that companies really need to think about is they have to have answers to all the key questions with things like how much working capital do they need for the inventory they're looking to build?

Do they really know that?

How fast are they going to scale their distribution?

What is their marketing plan?

When are they going to have to expand their product line?

And how confident are they in their forecast?

That's a huge thing.

And all of that takes money.

So if you have really good forecast accuracy, you're going to need way less money, have way less money to put in inventory than if your forecast error is 75% or 100%, which, as we know from our time working in inventory management at target is quite often.

Yeah, it's probably more often than not that bad.

Right?

Like when you're talking about early stage consumer companies, I got to think, yeah.

Oh, for sure.

Yeah.

There's always something in the wind and see what.

Which way the wind blows.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

So, I mean, all those things come into play, and I think the good early stage companies are thinking through all those things.

All right, Carl, so let's swing this back around to the retail side of things.

So you've already established that there's less money going around.

There's still a lot of good consumer startups out there.

But what does it imply for retailers, on the one hand, who are dealing with the brands that are getting funded, but then vice versa for the brands that are trying to sell into those retailers?

How should each side think about things as they're sitting across the negotiating table with one another?

Because the incentives have to align for there to be success.

Right?

You are totally right.

I mean, that's a really great question.

One of the things, one of the roles I had a target was on the negotiations team, and we used to talk all the time about empathizing with the other side.

And I think that is like, it's a skill, but it's also an art.

And it's an absolute requirement with early stage businesses if you're going to be a success as a retailer, bringing them.

In, we hear all the time about every retailer is talking about trying to keep their startup brands, give them more space on the shelf.

Absolutely.

And I can understand why they're saying that that's a good thing.

But at the same time, if you're going into these negotiations and you're saying, give me 90 days dating in order for you to get on my shelf for an early stage consumer business, I mean, that could be the death knell for them.

They are running cash to cash.

Their goal is to get money back in the coffers as fast as they can so they can produce inventory.

And I actually heard about that recently from a major retailer.

There was a buyer that was demanding 90 days dating from startups that were selling into their assortment.

That is just insane to me.

So there's things like that where you really have to empathize with what are the wants and needs of the other side of the table.

And it goes both ways.

I also think retailers tend to think that if they give a startup company a full store rollout, that's a win.

Well, and I think the companies themselves probably think that's a win until they leave and two months later they realize there's no way they can produce in time for that.

And then it's a huge loss.

And so I think the companies have to be responsible enough to know what can they actually take on, how much is too much to bite off and how do they kind of dial it in so that they can be as effective as they can be to make the retailer happy and vice versa.

So I think it's really something that both the retailers and the startup companies are in the early stage.

Consumer companies have to keep front and center.

It's just know what the other side wants and needs.

And how do you find a point of commonality in between that'll be a win win.

Carl, how do you recommend brands grow with large national scale retailers?

Do you recommend that they take a regional approach?

Approach to it?

Do they have to think about where their supply network is the strongest and grow out from there?

Like they open up the covers to all that?

What's your take on that?

Yeah, I mean, and you guys know a lot more than I do about how it is, how it manifests itself across different retailers.

But I would, I mean, what I advise the companies I invest in is it's good to start on Amazon, it's good to start DTC.

That's a good place to like take a first step.

Then your second step should be either in a regional portion of a major retailer or a smaller independent retailer or some sort of a small chain so that you can start to get up to speed and learn about that forecast error, learn what the product market fit is, learn what the demand is for the products before you launch.

In all Walmart stores.

For instance, to go from, I know of some companies have gone from, you know, selling on Amazon $2 million a year to full Walmart sets.

That's a big stretch.

And to be able to make that jump is hard to do.

So you have to be able to insulate yourself and have enough data points so that when you do get into get that big Walmart purchase order, you're ready to rock.

And so that's really, really key.

Carl, I'm curious how you think about some of these smaller scale rollouts.

Like, I'm thinking of Target.

Like, we're going to roll you out in 250 stores and then see how that goes.

Like, have you, do you have any advice or have you seen successes or failures on either side?

Because that's, that's kind of your one big shot.

And if you don't pay it off in the 250 stores, there's no way you're going to go chain wide.

What do you, what do you recommend to some of your clients or some of the early stage consumer brands that are, that are, you know, maybe going from that regional player now into a smaller subset of Target or Walmart stores?

Yeah, I think, honestly, I would say it's a blessing in disguise to a lot of these early stage consumer brands that think like, oh, we only got 250 stores.

No, no, no.

Actually 250 stores is great because you're going to either succeed in 250 stores and get rolled out to more or you're going to fail.

Well, if you were put in 1700 stores or 2000 stores and you failed to, that's just a colossal disaster, you know, and so better to start.

You know, I, the way I kind of liken it is to baseball, which is like, you know, better to like, have your slump, your batting slump when you're playing in single a versus, like, going straight to the major leagues and under the bright lights, having a major batting slump, better to do it, you know, down in the minors, get your sea legs and then be able to move up kind of through the ranks.

I think that's actually a good thing.

Yeah.

Well, the other point I bring up, too, from the standpoint of the entrepreneur, having an, and I live, live the entrepreneurial life now for eight years, is there's a whole lot of collateral damage that comes, you know, at you from a family standpoint, a personal standpoint, if you take on too big of a challenge too quickly as well.

So that's something to also point out.

Amen.

Yeah, that's, that's not in the financials, but that's, that's totally true.

Right?

Yeah.

It's a good thing to keep in mind, though, if you're, if you got your eye on that brass ring that is the full chain rollout before you're ready.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Well, Carl, let's shift gears a little bit and talk about trends.

I'm curious to get your perspective.

You're deep in this.

What trends are you seeing now and what trends are kind of dying off.

Yeah.

So there's I would say a few big, big trends and then there's a bunch of sort of like flavor of the month club stuff.

Um, I'm going to steer clear of the favorite flavor of the month club stuff because, you know, I could tell you product trends that are hot, they've been hot the past six months or the past three months or whatever.

That scares me, honestly.

I steer clear of those most likely because they usually don't have staying cover, you know, and so it's like you.

Were just saying, like, what's going to be here in ten years?

And bingo.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

So talking more about the big trends, I already mentioned AI.

That's a big trend for investing.

It's a big trend for investing with genai companies, obviously, and the supporting functions for those.

But then there's also tons of consumer businesses that are AI driven that are coming out right now.

I've seen a bunch recently, and as we talked about earlier, it is like the.com bubble where everyone knows that AI is going to be huge.

I mean, everybody knows it and everyone is investing based on that.

Is so many companies that have sort of incomplete business models are getting funded to like a pretty high valuation right now that, you know, that these guys aren't going to be successful.

I mean, for every, you know, Amazon, there was pets.com, you know, there for every, you know, and there was all, I mean, early on pets.com and Amazon, it was like Amazon was for books, pets.com was for pets.

And they were like the same thing, you know, and to see how they're, you know, there's been such a huge divergence in their paths.

It's going to be the same thing with all these AI companies.

There's going to be a few that are going to be massively huge and really successful.

And there's going to be a bunch that are going to go by the wayside and picking the winners is a little hard to tell right now.

Anyway.

Not surprisingly, I steer clear of things that are pure AI platforms because you're closing your eyes and throwing a dart at dartboard, then there's going to be a lot of fallout.

The thing I do think about for every business I look to invest in is how will AI help this business or how will AI disintermediate it or kill it?

You have to think about that.

For any kind of platform business, any kind of a service business, it matters a lot.

Maybe a little less so for product businesses, but it impacts them too.

Thats a big trend that I think you can either invest in directly or indirectly and how it impacts the businesses youre investing in.

So Carl, so basically youre saying you keep AI top of mind, but youre looking at it more from the perspective of is the company im going to invest in going to get disrupted by an AI technology play that maybe I invest in or maybe I dont, but thats what youre keeping an eye on.

Exactly.

Yeah, thats really huge.

And so probably not surprisingly, I tend to focus more on real differentiated products.

And so things that can be sold into retail, things that people are going to demand, things that are tangible and they tend to have a little bit more, I guess, defensibility against AI encroachment.

So that's one piece.

The things I look at with those is the market demand growing for these kinds of products and also are they really differentiated?

There's so many companies out there that I've seen that are me too in product categories that again, it's the same thing.

You're closing your eyes and throwing a dart at a dartboard.

But if you have real differentiation, like if you have a cornered resource or if you have intellectual property protection or something like that, patents or whatever, that's a way to stay differentiated and it's a way to create a mode that'll last longer.

And so that's an area to focus on for sure.

The other thing that I definitely look at is sort of a diversified channel strategy.

So I don't like the idea of businesses that are only going to be DTC for the reasons we talked about already.

And also I can't add as much value there.

I mean, my experience has been in retail and consumer less on the DTC side.

But I also think that every company that's getting invested in right now and consumer, most are actually DTC first brands or small store brands are going to be omnichannel.

That is really where I think people want to be because the thought is omnichannel.

You have a diversified base of revenue and you just have a greater likelihood of success.

So those are things that I think are growing as far as what is decelerating Amazon aggregators, we talked about that already a bit.

I think social influencer brands are still around, but I think it needs to start with product, not start with a social influencer looking for a product.

One of the things I talk about is for social influencers or for celebrities that are looking to find a product.

It's like rocket fuel looking for a rocket.

And oftentimes they'll just take the rocket fuel and pour it into a half built rocket.

Well, that doesn't end well.

And so I think there's a lot of that where it's like, oh, we raise money on a huge valuation because we have name x celebrity that is back in the company.

Great.

Well, when you go to raise your next round and revenue hasn't followed, what are you doing then?

That is problematic.

Sorry.

It's a long answer to a short question, but hopefully that gives you a little insight.

No, it gives us a lot to think about.

So I'm curious.

So I want to make sure too.

So basically, so you said if a founder comes to you, because this is what we heard a lot I can remember, I mean, I can remember some of the conversations we had in this space like four or five years ago, Ann, where.

So if a founder comes to you and says, so, ive got this great DCC brand I have no interest in ever selling to wholesale.

I want to keep control of my brand.

Thats a big red flag for you as an investor, Jeff.

For me it is.

It isnt for others, but for me it is.

It is for me for a couple reasons.

One is the lack of diversification.

You have risk there.

And then secondly, how can I help?

I mean, I mentioned at the beginning, sort of my whole piece is venture investing, but also helping them operationally.

And it's harder for me to help a DTC brand that's going alone on their website operationally.

Carl, that's funny, because Chris and I are on the same wavelength.

I was wondering, especially given your experience across multiple categories, especially beauty, are there categories that you do think are more successful or likely to have more success still maintaining just d two c sales relationships with their consumers versus a more diversified approach?

That's a good question, yes.

I mean, I do think that there are certain categories that have a greater likelihood of staying going alone on DTC.

I would say high margin, small package size brands where they can reinvest the margin into marketing.

Those are businesses that are likely to be more successful DTC only.

So you take beauty products that are easy to ship, that have high margins, and they can go out and make a huge deal on marketing via social media or whatever, TikTok shop, whatever, to get their word out there.

They're going to scale a lot faster DTC and it'll be easier for them to be successful without getting into brick and mortar retail, no question.

Now, I don't invest in the space, but furniture that would not be good.

Down jackets come to mind.

And honestly, somebody tried that.

So it's totally gallons of milk.

You know, like, when was the last time you saw a DTC gallons to milk retailer?

Like, you know, very expensive to ship.

You know, low margins.

Like that would be bad.

Perishable?

Yes.

All right.

Perishable.

Let's, let's get you out here on this.

This is the question I think we did.

Ann and I have been waiting to ask you as we kind of build up to it here.

But, uh, where do you.

So with all that said, where do you think the opportunities actually lie in the marketplace?

Yeah, um, I will tell you the biggest.

I have two things that I'm most focused on right now.

Um, and, and these are just sort of conceptual things that I'll get into specific, you know, more specifics.

But, um, first of all, and this is probably obvious, but really, really good leadership teams like that, that is a requirement.

Um, and so check.

You got to have that box checked.

And the reason why that matters so much is your business is going to have to pivot many, many, many times.

And if you have, like, a decent business with an awesome leader, they will know how to pivot and make the business better.

If you have what seems like a pretty good business and not a very good leader, when the business has to pivot, you're in trouble.

So that, you know, I would say leadership matters a lot.

The second thing that matters a lot to me is differentiated IP.

And I know I said that already, but just to like, underscore it, that is really, really important to me.

And the reason why it is, is because it gives you differentiation and defensibility in a space consumer where theres very little differentiation, theres very little defensibility.

I mean, think about how many food companies out there that have like, the hottest thing theyre going to get.

They have a very high likelihood of getting disrupted unless they build a really strong foundation and grow fast really quickly, you know, liquid death.

I mean, they're, they're killing it.

You know, they're.

But it's because their branding is so great, you know, and so that's how they've been able to, like, create a bit of a mode and scale.

But from.

Yeah, but for me, it's, it's, I tend to think, like, differentiated IP is a really good mode.

So I look at that a lot.

So, you know, just to give you an example of some of the companies I invested in already, they kind of fit those bills.

Like, so the first one is a yemenite hair care company called Small Wonder, actually founded by a target alum.

And they actually own IP on water free salon, professional, salon grade shampoo and conditioner.

And so the product itself is, the actual product is a powder that is patented as patent protection on it, but they also have a package.

They've created the dispensing mechanism that is also patented.

And so you can put it in the shower, and the powder doesn't get wet until you want it to get wet and want to activate it.

And so it's a really cool company.

And they have patent protection from a number of different angles there.

So that's one.

Another one is, one of the first companies I invested in is called shameless pets.

It's a dog treat company made with upcycled ingredients.

So they've created a supply chain for upcycled ingredients.

So upcycled ingredients are things that would be food waste that are kind of reconstituted into food ingredients that can be eaten.

And so it's better for the environment.

It reduces waste.

And dogs love them.

And so they have sort of this cornered resource that allows them to scale.

And so that's.

That's the second one I could go on and on.

There's a bunch of others.

One is a platform that has no, don't stop.

Come on, keep going.

I mean, there's people listening, going, oh, okay.

All right, all right.

If this is interesting, I'll keep going.

Another one is a company called Coherent Commerce invest in.

It was founded by two data scientists, one of which actually is also a Michelin star chef.

And this one is.

Yeah, when you're a dated science.

I'm also a Michelin star chef.

Yeah, yeah.

When he told me that, I was like, me too.

Yeah.

Renaissance man.

I'll say.

He has trouble getting dates.

Exactly.

And so what they've created is a sort of a platform, starting with food and beverage companies, that can actually take inputs, subjective and objective inputs, from early stage food and beverage brands and can ascertain, kind of via their algorithm, which ones are going to scale fastest.

And so that's pretty interesting and for many reasons.

And then the fourth one I'll mention is a company I invested in starting kind of the beginning of this year called Persephone Biosciences.

This company was founded by two PhD chemists, one from Caltech, one from Berkeley.

They've been studying the gut microbiome for the past seven years and have developed a point of view that will lead to oncology products that try to avoid colorectal cancer.

But they also have decided they can use the same platform to develop consumer products.

So their first consumer products are coming to market this fall.

And it's focused on the infant and toddler gut microbiome and reverting it to what it should have been a childbirth.

And so, like, they have 20 plus patents.

They have this, you know, this platform that is awesome.

And they're super smart and great, you know, great people, and they're going to use that to come to market with consumer products.

So I'm helping them with their go to market strategy into consumer.

So, anyway, sorry, I went down a huge rabbit hole there, but hopefully those are interesting.

No, that's why we wanted you on the show.

So basically, the takeaway for me is like, one, you got to have a great leadership team.

Two, you're looking for the trends.

So gut health is definitely a trend, but then you're looking for defensible ip within the capitalization on that trend by the companies within which you're investing.

Is that right?

That's right.

The only thing I would add is if it was a trend that thought was going to last six months, I wouldn't invest in it.

I think gut health is something that's going to be around.

I mean, it's going to be a focus area for, you know, research and for products for, for decades to come, in my opinion.

And so that's, that's why I feel so comfortable with this company.

Right?

Or like, upcycling dog food, too.

Same, same idea.

Like, upcycling is going to be a trend that's not going to go anywhere.

That's.

That's your point there.

Okay.

That's exactly right.

Yep.

Yeah.

All right, man.

Well, man, that blew by, and I was, I know.

I was like, this is like edge of your seats.

Edge of your seat listening.

For me, I was just like, letting, like, just enjoying hearing Carl wax on about everything.

So, uh.

So, Carl.

Yes.

So thank you.

In closing, we appreciate your perspective bringing, bringing great conversations also at omni talk.

And if people want to get in touch with you for what I imagine could be a whole host of different reasons for those listening to this podcast, what is the best way for them to do that?

Yeah, my website for my firm is www.ocampocapital.com.

you can reach out to me there or on LinkedIn, or you can also reach me@carlcamplecapital.com dot.

That would be just fine.

Awesome.

Well, hopefully we'll have you back on again soon.

That wraps us up.

Thanks again to Carl Bracken, founder and CEO of the new venture capital firm Ocampo Capital.

And thanks to everyone out there for listening into our first episode of what we hope will be an ongoing series on investor perspectives across retail and the consumer goods industries.

Please let us know what you thought of our interview with Carl on social media.

And as always, on behalf of all of us here at Omnitalk, on behalf of Anne and myself, be careful out there.