Episode 332 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Ben Lerer, Managing Partner at Lerer Hippeau.
The tech scene in New York City has come a very, very long way over the past 14 or 15 years. A lot of that transformation and growth was due to access to early stage capital which wasn’t prevalent back then, but Lerer Hippeau was a key element to the foundation of its success as a seed stage investor.
The firm was an early investor in many consumer brands that you recognize as they have all been very successful like Allbirds, Casper, Warby Parker, BuzzFeed, Mirror, Venmo, and many more. Its reputation was built on these consumer breakouts, but ultimately the firm is category agnostic investing equally across the enterprise and consumer landscapes.
For example, take a look at two of their most recent investments, which are Boston companies, 10Beauty (consumer robotics for manicures) and Tollbit (content monetization in the era of AI), which we talk about in details for this podcast.
Ben is now a fulltime VC after founding and running Thrillist that scaled and then added other digital media brands under its umbrella as Group Nine Media, which was acquired by Vox Media.
In this episode of our podcast, we cover:
- Ben’s thoughts on the market and if now is the ideal time to start a company.
- The inspiration behind Thrillist, plus lots of stories and lessons learned around the full lifecycle and evolution of the company to Group Nine Media and acquisition by Vox.
- Advice for entrepreneurs on building a startup media company in today’s world.
- How Lerer Hippeau came to fruition and what they are targeting for investments, plus why he considers himself a talent driven investor versus a thesis driven investor.
- And so much more.