[00:00:05] Melissa Traverse: Hello, and thank you for joining. I am Melissa Traverse, Director of Community here at BevNET Inosh, and I am excited to welcome you to the Nombase podcast, a podcast built to help CPG owners and operators navigate growth challenges and grow more profitable businesses. Be sure to check out Nombase.com, BevNET's platform made for the CPG community, where you can find this episode and so much more. Today, we are joined by Stephanie Nwokolo Hussey, principal of OpenSky Ventures, an early stage venture firm investing across consumer brands and the technology that powers them. OpenSky was founded in 2023 by a team of former founders and operators, and they've quickly built a portfolio that includes brands like Fishwife, Habiza, MagicMind, and Nomadica. They focus on companies that already have real traction, typically around that first million in revenue, and help them scale with both capital and hands-on support. Today, we're going to find out how the fund is structured, what they look for in early stage brands, where they spend the most time with the founders, and what opportunities they're most excited about right now across food, beverage, and the broader consumer ecosystem. Stephanie, it is so great to have you here. It's been such a pleasure, you know, preparing for this call and getting to know you and Open Sky little bit, and great to have you here.
[00:01:33] Stephanie Nwokolo: Yeah, it's great meeting you, Melissa, and thank you for having me.
[00:01:36] Melissa Traverse: Totally a pleasure. So OpenSky Ventures calls itself out as having a mission to fund the most disruptive new startups in the future of commerce. Your team, the OpenSky team, is made up of former CPG owners and operators. Can you tell us how you came to work with OpenSky and where you were before?
[00:01:58] Stephanie Nwokolo: I started my career in investment management, kind of like on the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to investing. So more public side, bigger companies, and looking at that area. But I transitioned into more of an operating role after my time at PIMCO, which is where I started my career, at Lionsgate, which was a publicly traded company, movie, more focused on the entertainment industry, doing finance and strategy there. And while I was there, I started a non-alcoholic functional beverage company with my really good friend at the time. And we, it just was kind of like this aha moment for me where I was able to transition from being more of a finance operations person, which I had kind of put myself in the head of like being and my like mentally was like, Oh, yeah, I'm more of a finance operations person. And then kind of pursuing this founders journey and the space made me realize, Oh, I can do sales, I can do marketing, I can like, think about like big picture, and not just kind of sidelined myself to the finance and strategy part of things. So that was a really big kind of transformation for me. And after my startup did not work, I realized I wanted to go back on the investing side, but really fell in love with the early stage kind of founders journey made so many friends that were also founders as well, and just wanted to stay in that space. It was a bit of a journey to realize that too, I thought I wanted to be a founder again. And you know, it kind of just worked out. And I got connected with the Open Sky GPs, Josh Resnick and Josh Payne. And it just was at right place, right time, kind of just got lucky. And that's how I ended up at OpenSky.
[00:03:35] Melissa Traverse: And you just mentioned Josh Resnick, who is the co-founder of OpenSky. He was before the co-founder of Sugarfina, the sort of high-end confection candy brand.
[00:03:47] Stephanie Nwokolo: Absolutely. Yeah. Very iconic, legendary. I had seen it for many years before meeting him. And I think a lot of people understand how giftable it is. And he had a really great eye for branding. He still has one of the most creative people I know and knows how to like just completely turn around a brand. And yeah, super, super impressive brand that he built with Sugarfina. Josh Resnick is more of the CPG GP, if you will. And then Josh Payne founded Stack Commerce, which connected brands to publishers in the early 2010s. So he's more of the tech enablement side, the commerce enablement side of the fund, which is the other kind of half of our fund. And he subsequently found founded Onward. So he exited from Stack Commerce in 2020, and then subsequently founded Onward a few years later, scaled that to $20 million in ARR in less than three years. And basically, Onward, it started out as shipping protection for brands, and now it's more of the post-purchase platform for brands. So still really connected to that brand space, but he did not start a CPG company.
[00:04:55] Melissa Traverse: That's incredibly helpful to have folks from different ends of the industry be able to offer support and advice alongside the capital in order to help those brands grow because, you know, the money isn't really anything if you don't know how to employ it the right way.
[00:05:12] Stephanie Nwokolo: Absolutely. And that's the thing, it's like, I like, I like that we have the synergy within our portfolio and within the GPs, because it's like one thing to know how to like tactically scale a CPG company or a brand. But then it's another thing to like, you know, appropriately deploy your capital into choosing the right tools and having the right kind of setup so that you can scale efficiently and better. And I think having those kind of sides of the same coin really help enhance our portfolio companies as they scale. as well, because a lot of our portfolio companies are either getting to that inflection point, or they're already at that inflection point where it's like, okay, we have X amount of employees. And you know, we're running lean, how do we maintain our lean structure? Or how do we how do we grow without employing too many resources, right? And how can we do it efficiently and smart. So that's, it's really great to know how that know how on the tech side as well.
[00:06:08] Melissa Traverse: Entrepreneurs are known for having a strong vision. You have to be confident. You have to be optimistic. Do you ever find yourselves in a position where you have advice that you'd love for a founder to take, but they're hesitant to take it? How do you deal with any challenges like that?
[00:06:29] Stephanie Nwokolo: I always like to kind of be a sounding board. I don't like to be prescriptive with the advice I give because I don't have the answers. Nobody has the answers. There could be many ways to kind of solve a problem and approach a problem. So I always kind of just like to take in the information, understand what the challenges are, and then give options. say, okay, if you take this approach, this is likely what's going to happen. It may or may not work out. It's really risky. If you take this other approach, though, I think you may not get everything you want, but this could be an easier path to reaching most of what you want, right? And I think with taking that approach, you get less of that friction. And it's more of the we're on your side. So I think there's like a way of communicating to founders and being more of a partner or a thought partner, rather than an investor who's like, Oh, you must for us to reach our goals with our fund, you must do X, Y, and Z. And I just don't think that helps anyone. So I think, you know, that's kind of what I've noticed is more gets more of a reception. And I think, you know, there's always this kind of tension between investors and founders when a startup is not going well, or when you hit those speed bumps. And I think that's the time the investor needs to be like the most supportive and the most apparent that we're on your side, because we did take make the decision to bet on those founders really early on.
[00:07:56] Melissa Traverse: That certainly sounds like an empathetic point of view and one I have to assume that's been influenced by all being founders yourselves. You said that you want to be the partner you wish you had had early on when you had a CPG business. What's something that you didn't get as a founder in those early days that you now make sure all of your OpenSky founders get?
[00:08:22] Stephanie Nwokolo: I think just the access to resources right like you know we don't have the answers every single time, but we probably know somebody in our network who does, and just having that openness and resourcefulness and ability to connect you to someone and saying hey you know. we either have the answers or we know someone who has the answers and that's just like to have that kind of backup right and have that sort of support just always there is really like it feels ensuring it feels very supportive and I I think that's the thing as a founder is like you, you have a tendency to kind of feel like you're on your own island, and sometimes be alone. And, you know, people are, you're maybe always surrounded by people, whether they're their customers, or your other team members, but, you know, mentally, you have so many things you're thinking about every moment. And it's nice to kind of have that support where you're like, okay, you know, especially once you're not bootstrapping, or once you start taking on investors, like you have a wider kind of range of who you can reach out to and kind of trade notes with. And I think that's something that, because I took more of a bootstrapping approach with my company that I really wish I had, because it's kind of like you're a little bit running blindly, if you will. So that is super nice to have. And I hope that our portfolio companies have found that to be really helpful for them as well.
[00:09:47] Melissa Traverse: OpenSky tends to invest on the earlier side. It's around 1 million in sales. Is that figure about correct?
[00:09:55] Stephanie Nwokolo: Yeah, that's about correct. I think, you know, nothing's hard and fast, but that's generally where we'll like, you know, really dig in, especially if you're a company that we're looking to invest in. I think anything before that is a little too early for us to have any meaningful data to get involved. And then, yeah, like I'd say between 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 million in sales. But really that sweet spot being like, you know, up to 5 million.
[00:10:19] Melissa Traverse: How would a brand know that they would actually be ready for a partnership with an organization like OpenSky? So, you know, for you guys, before the numbers are obvious, what are some of the early signals that tell you that a founder has that something special, whether as a founder, as a brand, as a product, all of those things?
[00:10:39] Stephanie Nwokolo: when you look at the company that they've built, there's so much data you can get, even though it's not maybe as robust as when you're, you know, $50 million brand, you can get still so much data about repeat customers, marketing, and how whether it's organic or paid marketing, how much of that have they put into the business, because that's something that we really like to look at. It's like, what type of customer loyalty metrics do you have and how much of this business can eventually run with as little marketing spend as possible because that's the biggest variable. I think that can kind of determine whether you've built a lasting brand or you're on the path to building lasting brand is whether you have those kind of early stage metrics that tell you, you know, whether there's this kind of real true, you know, capital B brand to steal one of my VC friends ways of describing this feeling. There's like a lowercase B and the uppercase B brand. And I think once you have the pieces to set the tone for really becoming that capital B brand, I think that's when we really like to dig in. and get involved and see what else there is going on there. And I think, you know, there are other factors like market size, and, you know, whether this is a, whether it's a fad or a trend, I think that's something generally from a category perspective, we look at as well. But I do think, you know, those kind of other factors aside, when you're looking at just one company, it's really interesting to see that interplay between like, you know, how often is your how big are of an advocate is your customer for this product, especially your first customers. And how are you acquiring customers, and how much is it taking you to acquire these customers can tell you so much. And it's really helpful to really see that kind of path, especially with the companies we've invested in. It's kind of very telling, those little early pieces I've talked about, to how these companies develop.
[00:12:32] Melissa Traverse: One of your portfolio brands is Magic Mind. They make functional shots and a large portion of their consumer base were subscribers. So I think that's probably such a good example of what you're talking about. Being able to show subscriptions like they had really does prove out customer loyalty.
[00:12:52] Stephanie Nwokolo: Yeah, exactly. And that's definitely true for the e-commerce side. And then on the retail side, velocities and trying to understand that as well is really telling because, you know, if you don't hit your velocities, then it's not likely that you're, there's something probably not working or something missing there. So, yeah, I would say on the retail side, it's definitely looking at early velocities and on the, you know, e-commerce side, it's definitely looking more at the subscription rates and the churn and understanding the repeat rates from, you know, your customer base.
[00:13:29] Melissa Traverse: And where is OpenSky right now in terms of the lifecycle of their current fund?
[00:13:35] Stephanie Nwokolo: Yeah, so we raised fund one and we were currently fully deployed out of fund one. And we are in the process of raising fund two and we are starting to deploy out of fund two as well. So very exciting time to kind of build our fund two portfolio.
[00:13:53] Melissa Traverse: It's so exciting. I'm glad we're having this conversation. And what size checked is OpenSky typically, right? Is there a common number there?
[00:14:02] Stephanie Nwokolo: Yeah, so I would say for Fund 1 and early part of Fund 2, our check sizes were 100 to 200K. And I think as we get into the meat of deploying out of Fund 2 in a few months, I'd say we're trying to track towards more between 500 to 750K in terms of check size.
[00:14:22] Melissa Traverse: I actually saw Josh Resnick explaining OpenSky and the value proposition and what they look for. And he talked a bit about strong storytelling. And that's certainly something that I see across the portfolio brands that we're talking about today. Brands like Fishwife, MagicMind, Habiza, the ones I mentioned earlier. Can you think of what made any of those stories really compelling to you as investors? When you heard the pitch about why the brand existed and what the value proposition was and their reason for being, that it really did just fire something off in your mind and made you think, oh yeah, this is what we're looking for.
[00:15:02] Stephanie Nwokolo: I think part of it's the founder and how they tell the story and how it relates to them. But I think generally with the storytelling part as a brand, you can just kind of see it. There's this kind of je ne sais quoi about it, where you see the brand and you understand, you get the same feeling as a consumer, right? Because we're consumers in the same way we're investors. We walk through the grocery stores we go online and we shop. And I think you sort of see how with, for example, Fishwife, the branding is just so ornate and beautiful and detailed. And it's just like, no matter where you are, for me at least, I have a serious appreciation for how carefully designed it just appears. And I think with Magic Mind, you get that sense as well. It's just like, this is something special. With the storytelling aspect, it's like, Who are your consumers? How do you meet them where they're at and give them this full experience? It's like in a sea of kind of copy and paste, if you will, for some brands. How do you really make sure you're resonating with the people who are taking their time and money to buy your product and seek you out? There's just something where a brand really hits the head on nail. And you just see it, and it immediately captures your attention. And I think once you've done that, you've done a lot of the work in kind of building the foundation for building a strong brand.
[00:16:31] Melissa Traverse: What do you think separates a really strong story from one that could use a little bit more tweaking? And I was, you know, trying to think about what my answer would be to that. And it's funny, it is sort of like an intuitive thing when you know it, you hear it. But to me, there's something about it being specific and relatable. Not necessarily that I have to have the same story that they do, but I just understand the value proposition very easily. For you, what separates a really fantastic story from A good one, a fine one.
[00:17:03] Stephanie Nwokolo: The more it feels like it will resonate with someone, the better, right? You don't have to be everything for everyone. I think that's kind of a cliche for a reason, because you can't. There are billions of people on this planet who have had different experiences. You can't be everything to everyone. You can't serve everyone. But I think the more niche you get and capturing those specific people's wants and needs and desires, the better the story kind of naturally flows, right? So like, even if it's someone who started a product, because it personally bothered them, or they have a personal connection to it through a family member or a friend, or whatever it was, I think the better you you kind of come across with like explaining why this product exists, and why you were the best person to bring it to life, and how exactly your vision for it is going to, you know, kind of impact the world, I think the better, you know. So detail, specificity, and like just kind of Really being able to convey the harmony there is really important. And I think that separates good from fine. Any proof of concept you've built to the state, right? History isn't going to determine anything, but I think it's a really strong indicator as to how you will continue to do, right? Being able to bring as much of that into it is really special.
[00:18:31] Melissa Traverse: I think you've just provided our entire audience with a how to pitch Open Sky, which is amazing. Let me ask you about decks. Just out of curiosity, how much attention do you give to them? And do you have any pointers for folks out there who are in the process of pitching or who will be pitching soon what you hate or love to see in a deck?
[00:18:53] Stephanie Nwokolo: Seeing like something that's cohesive doesn't feel like You can be ambitious, right, with your numbers, which, by the way, the numbers need to be correct. I think typos are kind of a thing where that's a big red flag if we see typos or things that just don't make sense or align. But all that aside, when you're telling the story of like why you exist and what you're here to do, it's easy to kind of feel like you need to give these really big numbers. And like in two years, we're going to hit $50 million in revenue. And we're actually making, you know, we're at $5,000 right now. Let's be realistic, right? As investors, we appreciate the ambitiousness, but we've seen how so many times how that doesn't really line up with reality. And so being a little bit more honest with yourself about what the business will actually look like, that's something that I really like to see. And other things that really excite me, I think, when I look at a deck is just understanding customer loyalty and customer retention and really understanding how your customers that you've built to date resonate with your product. highlight that, you know, if you are at a 90% subscription rate, that is amazing. And we want to see that right. Or if you're, you know, cacks are really low, your customer acquisition costs, like we want to see that too, and highlight that and you know, whatever metrics that really tell the story of like, you have come to market and you've really built this great foundation, that's like kind of what makes me get excited about it. And then being upfront about your challenges as well, right? So like, why are you raising this money? There's always going to be like use of funds slide in the deck, how are you going to take some of the challenges you're kind of facing right now, and like actually implement them to, you know, improve your business or to scale further? I think that those are big game changers for us too, because I think sometimes you look at a deck and you're like, okay, is this actually going to happen? Do you are you able to execute right? Because it's sort of like, oh, we're going to put 30% of this into marketing. but like how, like to do what, for what end, right? Those are some things that like really turn or red flags versus green flags and things that I get excited about when I'm looking at a deck. And I think just like vision and storytelling is another like, you know, positive thing to look at. I think sometimes, especially within consumer, these decks we look at, it's like, you're trying to convey like, a story that's like, okay, we are building a brand, but then the story of the brand isn't really coming through, at least in a very aesthetic way. I think it just adds to the kind of attention to detail when you have the brand and kind of the way you want to connect with your consumers also portrayed in the way that the deck is displaying the story of the brand.
[00:21:53] Melissa Traverse: And I think your point about a founder's vision needing to come through clearly in a deck makes perfect sense. And I know that OpenSky in general emphasizes strong founders with a clear point of view. So how does that clear point of view come through in a deck? What does it look like if you're a food or a beverage brand founder? How are some of the ways that you see people really pull that to the front?
[00:22:18] Stephanie Nwokolo: I think differentiation is key. If you are a beverage company, let's say you're in the protein space or anything else, because those are becoming saturated categories, right? Like protein, energy, like water, really differentiating how you stand out and what you've done to stand out today and how you connect with people in all of this noise, right, in the market. I think that's really key because otherwise, you know, you could scale to a few million or, you know, 10 million in revenue, but how do you get past that point if you're not really differentiated and a consumer can just swap you in for someone else, you know, without notice? So I think what's really key is just really honing in on how you're differentiated, whether it's your marketing or your product itself, the ingredients you use. Or it's just like kind of a combination of like how you're really going out there and making sure that you're continuing to find new customers that resonate with your product. But I think sometimes it gets lost in the messaging when you're talking to investors because there are so many similar products that kind of come out. It's like how do you really think about how you're positioned against your competitors, or even if your competitors don't exist, potential competitors, you know?
[00:23:31] Melissa Traverse: There's so much education that a brand needs to do when they're going to market. And to your point, I think differentiation is something that they think about quite a bit. But being able to make that obvious to consumers when they're coming to market is challenging. How are some of the interesting or just well thought out ways that you've seen founders bring their brand to market and be able to communicate what their unique value proposition is when most people probably don't know them that well.
[00:24:05] Stephanie Nwokolo: There are so many ways you can do this, but I think really being as efficient as possible and capital efficient, that's very telling when you're able to just organically get out there, whether it's taking more of a guerrilla marketing approach and even getting on online and getting involved with like, you know, if you're a baby company and you're getting involved with like the mom groups on Facebook, I've seen that resonate with consumers a lot when you're able to get in there and provide product that really resonates with the problems that they're talking about in an intimate space. That's really interesting when you're able to kind of get out there and meet the customer where they're at and do it in a way that's really smart and captures kind of their attention in an organic way. What's going to carry over is if you start organically, it's going to be easier to build and scale organically rather than starting from more of a paid perspective and like trying to pay to play and then trying to transition that over to a more organic customer base, I think that transition might be a little bit more difficult, if not impossible. With the way that marketing has evolved over the last few years, especially from the late 2010s to now, there are lots of ways you can kind of find your niche and carve out a space for yourself, whether it's more of the in-person community activation events or connecting with other brands. When you're talking about go to market, you have to have your plan very much laid out. before you even launch. It's not something you figure out as you go, if you're looking for a VC to get involved earlier on within the first few years of your product launching. And you can always take time to like, I would say like a six month period or a year period to like experiment with your customers and like really get to know what will resonate with them as you're building your product. But then once you launch, you really have to figure out what that execution looks like for go to market.
[00:26:01] Melissa Traverse: So many folks in CPG come from other disciplines, finance, law, tech. And as you were talking through go-to-market strategy, I was just thinking, you know, it's probably tricky to figure out how to lay out a really great one if you don't know that much about the industry, which many folks don't when they come into the CPG space. And it's really helpful to get input from other folks who are more established in the industry and to really start building your network as soon as you can so you can get some advice and maybe not make some of the mistakes other folks who are further along have made. I know that OpenSky helps with network building. How should founders think about building networks both for support and to create venues for opportunity for themselves and their brands?
[00:26:52] Stephanie Nwokolo: There are so many different ways you can approach this, and I think a lot of founders who are already scaling or have scaled their companies are open to chatting and getting to build relationships with up-and-coming founders, right? So I think leveraging your network to get to know people who've built in similar spaces as you, or even different spaces, that can be helpful as well. just trying to understand kind of the pitfalls that they've run into and some of the things that really helped them can be such a valuable perspective for you as you, if you're a founder who's trying to start something or who's really early on in their journey. And then yeah, like also with the VCs, I get a lot of requests to chat through things from the perspective of investing. And sometimes even when I get requests for advice, it turns into like a pitch call, and I'm really happy to do the calls where, you know, I just get to know you and I genuinely am just giving a founder advice, right? But I'm so happy to be like a resource or connecting with someone I know that could be helpful. But absolutely, I think utilizing whatever network you have to expand your network base is a great place to start because I think warm connections will always beat out a cold connection.
[00:28:09] Melissa Traverse: That was a great tip there about not turning an advice call into a pitching call. Certainly fundraising is something that depends on your network and really benefits from a large network. Does OpenSky also help their portfolio clients find some of those next partners for their next fundraising journey?
[00:28:32] Stephanie Nwokolo: I've definitely facilitated conversations with investors who are, you know, later stage. I know the GPs have themselves. And part of our job is to like connect with investors as well. So our network there is large. And I think we want to be as helpful as we can be to help our portfolio companies continue to scale. And once they get to that next point where they're raising their Series A, Series B rounds, we want to make sure that we're opening as many doors as we can.
[00:29:01] Melissa Traverse: So something I've been hearing a lot more lately in CPG is capital efficiency. A few years ago, it was profitability. You know, right after the pandemic, we were working with a different set of issues that made the public sort of really focused on profitability. But now I hear capital efficiency a lot more often. What would you say that actually looks like in food and beverage today?
[00:29:29] Stephanie Nwokolo: I think it's a lot easier to be capital efficient with AI tools and leaner teams are able to get to several million in like run revenue. So without necessarily having to take on as much overhead. And I think fractional help is more prevalent today as well, which makes it easier for teams to lean on that. But I would say capital efficiency for us is within food and beverage, not spending so much on marketing, because I do think marketing is your biggest variable cost, right? So being careful about meta ads and meta spending, like I think you've seen exorbitant prices there. The ROI fluctuates from what I've seen with what founders have talked about. So also with COGS, I think especially with the tariff announcements from last year, it kind of shook some founders and their companies up just hearing about that and trying to figure out how do they respond to the potential change in their supply chain. And so I think making sure that that's really buttoned up, and making sure that you're consistently checking in to make sure you're getting the best quality product, but also within, you know, the most reasonable price. So I would say it's making sure that you're being as efficient as possible, whether it's using fractional help with the marketing teams or even with affiliate marketing and how you utilize influencers, if that's the way you want to go out and market your product. And then on the operations side, making sure that the partners you use or the production facilities you use are the most efficient way for you to build and expand your product.
[00:31:14] Melissa Traverse: Capital efficiency certainly requires a strong supply chain strategy. And you just were talking about how tariffs impacted the way that founders and operators were putting their supply chain together and buttoning it up. What did you see as some of the steps that founders were taking in order to be a little bit on the safer side? I would assume it's things like trying to source ingredients from the United States. Is that right? Were there other things that you saw?
[00:31:46] Stephanie Nwokolo: Yeah, either in the United States or other areas where the tariffs weren't impacted as much. There were different things we saw, but I think ultimately, and we also saw some portfolio companies say, this actually isn't this big of an impact for us. It only increased our COGS by two or three percent, we're going to keep things as is and focus on other areas of our business where we can potentially increase our ROI a bit more. It was just maybe a good reminder to just check in and make sure that, hey, with the current people we're working with, are we really aligned in getting the best possible pricing there? So that was kind of a good reminder for a lot of our portfolio companies. I think some of our portfolio companies shifted, but a lot of them stayed the course with what they were doing because it ultimately turned out to be the most cost efficient solution for them already.
[00:32:39] Melissa Traverse: Yeah, whether there was an actual impact or not, it certainly sounds like it was a good stress test. One of the other factors that you just mentioned when we were talking about capital efficiency was AI, and there are so many things that founders and operators can do in order to make some savings there. And OpenSky, you know, you guys are invested in multiple AI businesses. How are you seeing brands effectively use AI today? And are there any applications that you think are especially promising?
[00:33:11] Stephanie Nwokolo: I'd say there are so many tools that can help you expedite the process of figuring out how to connect with your consumers more efficiently. And so the tools that we have invested in, particularly the AI ones, are really focused on making sure that your marketing costs are as low as possible. One of our portfolio companies on the tech side is called OuterSignal. And basically what they do is with Shopify, if you're a brand on the merchant side, when a customer completes a purchase, you receive their name and their email address and their home address or wherever they get shipped, but you don't receive any other information. And so what OuterSignal does is help you get more information about your customer. and understand them better and connect with them better. So what that means is that if you find out that you're, if you're like a dental company, I think this is one of their case studies, and you find out that one of your customers owns a dental practice and they're a dentist, why don't you find that out, you send them more product, and then suddenly they're, you know, more of an evangelist for your product, and then their customer base, your customer base expands as a result. Really being smart about the way you're using AI to like understand your customer better and efficiently targeting your customers more and expanding your customer base through that method has been really interesting. AI on the shipping and logistics side as well is that there are areas there that we're looking at and we're invested in a company called Ship Sidekick that helps with your 3PLs or also on your logistics side of things to optimize your supply chain there. There are so many applications for how we've invested in AI and how that directly translates to the ways that our brands and our portfolio utilize AI.
[00:35:00] Melissa Traverse: Those are two great examples. Certainly, as you were describing the first one in the data collection that folks can get from Shopify, You know, it occurred to me that it's really hard to find good data when you're early on. So being able to extract as much as you can from anything that you're doing is so important. I'm wondering post-Expo and after seeing all the protein we thought we were going to, less fiber than we thought we were going to, and trying to sort of figure out what the next big thing is. It makes me wonder, how do you all separate the hype and, you know, things and, you know, brands and products that are more of the moment versus the investable businesses that you know are going to last long term?
[00:35:54] Stephanie Nwokolo: we look at more of the trends and secular trends, right? So what is gonna be here in three to five years, what's gonna be here in five to 10 years and onward, right? And like, what's a genuine shift in consumer behavior and consumer thoughts and what's kind of being reinforced as something that's like a must have. That's something that we really like to differentiate is whether there's like real, you know, proven theory behind what claims are being made versus something that's like, oh, collagen, like you just add a collagen, you know, teaspoon of collagen to your coffee and you know, you'll look better. Protein is a real trend for a reason because it's scientifically proven to, you know, help you lose weight and like feel better and build muscle, especially with the proliferation of GLP-1s. I think that's something that is a true and honest shift in the fabric of consumer behavior at this point. At this point, GLP-1s are not going away. They're here to stay. Some people are just going to continue to use them for as long as they need. And that's something that really exists five years ago, right? But not to the extent of availability that it is now. So that's something we're focused on is like, what are the downstream effects of these major changes that are actually changing consumer behavior? So I think I'm really excited about peptides. I think there's been a lot of research showing that people are Willing to experiment with them and I think it could be extra supplementation that people kind of use in their day-to-day lives So I'm excited to see how that continues to evolve and which peptides resonate with people more Obviously a lot of research still needs to go into the peptide space. So very optimistic, but cautiously So we're invested in this one company called sunny within so it's like liposomal supplements and And I'm really interested in that form factor as well. I think there's just so much research behind it that shows that it's really, truly more effective than other supplementation methods. So I'm interested in that space. Protein is interesting, but in so much as it's like from real sources of food, like fish wife is a great example of that, where it's tinned fish. And so you're getting your protein from a natural source. And Habiza is also another example of that. I'm excited about that rather than just adding more whey protein to, you know, X to vodka, for example.
[00:38:33] Melissa Traverse: Well, I'm definitely going to check out liposomal supplements. That's not something that I had heard about before, but right after this, I'm going to go check it out. For all of the folks out there, the founders who are out there listening to this and, you know, they're at 1 to 5 million in sales or so, and they are in a position where they're looking to do some fundraising. What would you like them to know about OpenSky? Any words of advice or anything that they should know?
[00:39:02] Stephanie Nwokolo: The vision is super important and the loyalty that you've built is through your customer base is super, super important. If you can convey that, then that's basically half the battle right there. As VCs, we want to like add fuel to the fire that's already being lit and already there. We don't want to be the catalyst to unlock the beginnings of your growth, right? We want to build on what's already there. So showing that the momentum is there and really strong with or without us, it's going to happen. And that's kind of the story we want to get involved with because as VCs, that's the point of what we're doing is to just invest in great companies that will be around for a long time. The ugly side of VC is that we need to return the capital that we invest in these companies, right? I think that's the honest part of what we're here to do is like, you know, it's multifaceted. We want to help great founders excel and support their goals. But then on the flip side, we also need to, the capital that we do invest needs to come back and we need to make a return.
[00:40:11] Melissa Traverse: That is a real take and everything that you shared today was transparent and generous. Stephanie Nwokolo, HSE Principal at OpenSky Ventures, thank you so much for joining the Non-Based Podcast and shedding light on how you do what you do over there. It's been such a pleasure to have you. For everybody else, thank you for listening to the Non-Based Podcast and we will see you next time. That concludes another episode of the Nambase podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a review and follow us on your listening platform of choice. You can also watch and listen to past episodes on nambase.com. And don't forget to join our Nambase Slack at slack.BevNET.com for company updates, industry networking, and community discussions. See you next time.
