Why This VC Built the Marquee Event in CPG | Josh Wand, Family Fund

0:00Mike Gelb:Hey, welcome to Consumer VC. This is a podcast where we discuss investing in consumer brands and technology businesses. I'm your host, Mike Gelb. This episode is a little bit different. As you can maybe tell, it's a lot shorter than the rest of the episodes. I'm talking with Josh Wand, who is the co-founder of Family Fund and Founder Community and Founderland. This episode, we're going to focus on Founderland, which is one of the marquee events in all of CPG and how Josh and his partner, Sean, created this event. I'm super excited. I'm attending it for the first time. This is the third year they've done it, and I just can't wait.

0:38Mike Gelb:Without further ado, you're Josh.

0:45Josh, how are you?

0:47Josh Wand:I'm doing great, Mike. Good to see you.

0:50Mike Gelb:Good to see you. I can't believe I got you right now to come on the show because this is like the craziest week for you. I mean, next week is Founderland. How are you feeling?

0:59Josh Wand:It's like leading up to the Super Bowl for us. It is crazy. There's a lot of preparation. There's a lot of organization. And you have to step away and think strategically about how it's all going to be executed. But I couldn't be more excited. And I wouldn't miss this. So thanks for the invite. Stop.

1:15Mike Gelb:No, no, no, no, no. Thanks so much. I'm so excited that I caught you right before Founderland. Thank you. So you obviously started Family Fund with Sean a few years ago. Why then also, why should a venture capital fund create a massive event? I mean, it kind of has become, like a lot of people say, the go-to event in CBG. What was the purpose behind it? How did it kind of all come together?

1:49Josh Wand:When Sean and I decided to create Family Fund and Founder Community, we decided to build a fund that we always wish we had as founders. And part of that is building this LP community of incredible founders and CEOs and retailers and strategics and investment bankers and thought leaders in the space that can help these founders build their businesses. And so this ecosystem approach was very important to us. And then what we realized is we can't invest in every brand. We can't have every founder and family office in our fund, but what we really are deeply passionate about is building the consumer ecosystem, paying it forward and helping a lot of others.

2:28Josh Wand:So we said, honestly, like about three years ago, we were planning our AGM, which was our family fund summit to bring together all of our portfolio companies and our investors. We said, what if we extended it one day and we created a festival to celebrate founders and CEOs in an environment in which they could lean in and they could support each other top to top because they're so busy. It's so hard and so lonely at the top to ask for help and to deal with other people that have been on similar stages of the journey. We said, if we do that, we bring together retail decision makers and strategic acquirers and other investors we deeply admire and respect that we want to work with and partner with all together with content, with meals together, with thought leadership talks, with experiential activations put on by the founders that are true expression of them.

3:25Josh Wand:What might happen? And what we realized was a whole lot of relationship building and partnership development. So what was year one and experiment turned out year three to be something that we couldn't be more thrilled to put on.

3:39Mike Gelb:So talk to me a little bit about, that's amazing. So it kind of was tied to the first event that you do on the night before. Is that right? Yeah.

3:48Josh Wand:We actually have our family fund AGM the day before in Malibu at the Calumet Gusserrand. So not only do we have Founderland on Thursday, Tuesday night and Wednesday, we have all of our portfolio companies and our LPs together. for moderated talks, portfolio presentations, State of the Union, meals together, workouts together, real relationship building. And then we expand upon that. And the following day, we will have a thousand people drop in to Founderland with just an incredible experience for all.

4:21Mike Gelb:So one of those things that, since you have all the people that are associated with Founder, with, excuse me, with Family Fund, Why not just extend that and make an event that's more open where you obviously have different types of folks too that are coming like retailer buyers and different investors, for example, that are kind of all traveling here from then obviously different founders too that companies that you find interesting maybe aren't in your current portfolio. why don't we then extend it and actually create an event that kind of brings all this together since we already have our group in town that's exactly right and it was actually i remember i

5:03Josh Wand:was at calmingos ranch um it was about three or four years ago we were walking through just doing a site visit and it was my partner sean um as we were walking down his path because this ranch is beautiful it's 250 acres and we're having a cup of coffee he's like he's like i have this idea and i have to give him this credit um what if we just extended it because our agm or summit's so small and so intimate, but there's so many people that we respect, admire, and people we might want to partner with in the future, or people that, you know, we know other partners of ours would want to partner with.

5:33And if we can actually build this platform, you know, we're not only just a fund, which

5:40Josh Wand:is table stakes, but in the center of this community, helping orchestrate ways in which these founders can grow by putting other people around them that can help it wholeheartedly you know what we love it we absolutely love doing it and it gives us a lot of joy and excitement as

5:59Mike Gelb:we get ready to prepare and move into october 1st why why did you choose casamigos uh well

6:07Josh Wand:casamigos is a tequila you can drink at cal amigos by the way that gets confused all the time which is great cal amigos well we we wanted something like close enough to la but far enough away. Nestle in the Hills where when people show up, they feel like they're on a retreat. We wanted it to feel like a festival and kind of like a fantasy, not just a conference or an AGM at a hotel ballroom. There's nothing wrong with that. That's fine. That is not this. We want people to really, really, really engage. In fact, the Wi-Fi is okay up there. Everyone, turn your phone off. Spend time in the real world.

6:46Josh Wand:And so by doing this, it's a full day experience. We're like doors open at 11. We have incredible content from 12 to 6. We'll have founder and CEO thought leadership talks about creating categories, about brand building, about beauty, about partnerships, about AI and beyond. We have pitch slams that are happening. Three different categories, which are going to be really incredible. Founders telling inspiring, We're hearing impactful stories. We'll have an award ceremony. We have these retail dens this year where we have eight retailers that are actually going to be doing intimate talks, Target, Sprouts, Walmart, Whole Foods, Sephora, Ulta, a vitamin shop, beyond.

7:33Josh Wand:It's going to be awesome. And they're going to be sharing experiences of what it takes to build a healthy partnership with them. Watchouts, great partnerships that they've developed, but really they are there to help is members of the community, these other founders. And then you pop out of the tent and you can have a cocktail together. You can have Coconut Colt's going to have a frozen yogurt truck, you know, Eric Scared from Carbone's making pizzas, you know, Fly by Jing's got a really cool surprise. We'll have, you know, all types of health and wellness activations, longevity talks. It's going it be really special and we have a campfire at night with cocktails and mocktails and cigars and we'll have some surprise and delight experiences but it's all on a ranch 250 acres where people can really spend time the key is like connect with people you've never connected with like really build the relationship there get off the grid go have a coffee have a meal do an experience together and our goal is to um create something that's really memorable we're like real partnerships and relationships have forged.

8:40Mike Gelb:How? Because that's a lot. That's a lot of things to kind of jam-pack in the day. How do you think about programming and the overall experience when you and Sean were ideating as well, even back when you founded it three years ago?

8:55Josh Wand:Yeah, it's a great question. And it's a fantastic question. Sean's wife, Shannon, who's our partner in this, is an event planning extraordinaire. And she is one of the best and brightest that I've ever worked with. And it's a multi-sensory, you know, it's kind of pick your own adventure. If you'd like to sit in, you know, a thought leadership talk about retail, you should, if you want to be inspired by founders, you should, if you just want to walk around those in between moments and do experiences or get an IV or get a facial or taste some great things, like go on a walk, meet the founders, you know, talk to, talk to other founders.

9:35Josh Wand:If you'd like to just have a long meal together, you should do that. We're also going to have live podcasting. We're going to have, you know, live production. We thought about this as being like a festival for founders. We're like, I think Davos meets Coachella. And it's not a music festival by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a celebration of the creators out there in this world that are building incredible brands with a real focus on helping them elevate their business through content, through mentorship, through experience and through relationship building. So really it's, it's hard to explain until you're there on site.

10:20Josh Wand:You know, barring any weather challenges, you know, we hope this is incredible, incredible event. Yeah.

10:27Mike Gelb:I can't wait to attend. Really, really excited to attend next week. And thank you so much for letting me attend. How do you think about as well in terms of partnerships of which brands that you want kind of featured or even just unique experiences that you have with brands that are more about the founder's interests than the actual product itself?

10:51Josh Wand:Yeah. I mean, when you can only do 50 activations and you have 550 applications, It's not because you don't want to accommodate. It's only because you only have so much space. And so we really asked a lot of these brands to come up with super creative ideas of things they've never done elsewhere. So you can like pop into the immortal chamber. You know, you can do, you know, incredible, like engaging experiences. I don't want to I don't want to reveal too much. But we asked the brands to be very creative in what they were putting together. And they did. and they've surprised and delighted us. And we have a lot of vehicles popping in.

11:32Josh Wand:And ultimately we want the founders to say, this is the coolest experience there, if not in the bed. And we want the other founders to say, oh my God, I had no idea. Like this is what the brand is all about. I just thought it was a protein powder. And so we are really challenging people to say, if you could do one activation, one activation only, for the people that you most respect and admire in this space, what would that look like? And that's what they're coming up with.

12:02Mike Gelb:What was, I don't want to ask you what you're most looking forward to this time around because I don't want you to reveal anything, but last year, what was most surprising or most kind of fascinating in that event? And also the first year as well.

12:18Josh Wand:That's a great question.

12:24Mike Gelb:i was or even just a highlight that you were just kind of blown blown away i gotta tell you there

12:31Josh Wand:was like there we counted this there were like 17 companies that came to us and said if it were not for this event i would have never gotten in front of this retail partner and been able to built or build a relationship with them and grow and actually like roll out nationally without this introduction i would have never gotten funded i got the capital i needed and there's a couple companies that actually ended up structuring deals where they sold their companies so we were like the fact that all of that happened in one day like was like those weren't scripted those were moments where the right people collided with the right partners and were able to accomplish an incredible amount of progress in one afternoon.

13:23Josh Wand:And so when I look back at, I was talking to Sean about this, like what I'm most excited about is like, how many of these deals are going to get done this year? You know, I mean, we want to find stuff to, you know, invest in. We want to find other founders to support if it's not right for us, that we can connect with other people. We want to make sure Target and Sprout since 4 and Ulta are finding new brands that they're really excited about. So for us being at the center of that, you never know until you're there, but we're really going to keep the communication loop open to see what happens afterwards because it's just, those are the type of things that make it really gratifying for us as the event organizers.

14:04That puts also a lot of pressure on you too, right?

14:08Mike Gelb:In that you have a number of applications, a number of brands I want to attend, right? but not obviously every company can attend. You have to apply. We feel bad because there's like 260 brands that are on the wait list.

14:24Josh Wand:And it's not that we don't want to accommodate. It's founders and CEOs only. And just we have a max capacity of 1 ,000, which is, you know, that's how the event works.

14:32Mike Gelb:Oh, no, for sure. And at the same time, you want to, I'd imagine, you know, companies that you think are, you know, most interesting, maybe for family fund, but also as well for the targets, for the Walmarts, that they're actually also kind of wowed by, they stumble upon products or companies that they didn't actually have yet in their pipeline. How do you think about it from that perspective in terms of your decisions of which companies that you actually approve?

15:05Josh Wand:Yeah, it's a great question. It's mostly founders and CEOs of consumer health and wellness companies. It's not that many service providers, and we love service providers.

15:15Mike Gelb:Right, right, right. No, for sure.

15:16Josh Wand:We really think about category. We think about innovation. We find out what the retailers are looking for. We speak to them quite a bit. What type of brands, what kind of categories are really top of mind? What's trending well on TikTok shop? What DTC brands are really looking to grow and retail? And honestly, what are some brands and some innovations that help one that no one's ever seen? Like these can be it doesn't mean it can't be a super early stage small company. It can be. I mean, are they are they creating something that needs to exist in the world? You know, are the founders have an incredible reputation, meaning people really want to potentially work with them?

16:02Josh Wand:And do we believe ultimately that the ecosystem will benefit from having them around and being there? And by the way, there's some that we'll just miss and we're bummed about that because there's so many great people out there. So many. I mean, I love founders and CEOs that are building something. I think it's so hard to do. But really the trend is like, you know, what do we think will be the category defining businesses, you know, of the future and the people that will really contribute in a meaningful way.