Investor Spotlight: Graham Garzon, Ground Force Capital — Growth Stage Investing, Business Fundamentals, and What It Takes to Build an Acquirable Brand

In this episode of the Startup CPG Podcast, host Hannah Dittman sits down with Graham Garzon, Vice President at Ground Force Capital — a consumer focused growth equity fund with deep roots in food and beverage. Graham brings a background in investment banking and private equity to a firm whose two founding partners are CPG entrepreneurs themselves, giving Ground Force a rare combination of financial rigor and operator empathy. He plays a key role in sourcing, evaluating, and diligencing new opportunities, as well as supporting portfolio companies as they scale toward an eventual exit.

Ground Force invests at the growth stage, typically writing checks between $10 and $40 million in brands doing north of $15 to $20 million in revenue. They are minority investors by default, focused on being the last institutional capital before an exit, and they lean in as active board members and thought partners — not passive check writers. Their portfolio spans food and beverage, fast casual restaurants, and the consumer enablement technology that powers emerging brands.

Hannah and Graham get into what growth stage investing actually looks like from the inside — what acquirers care about, why profitability has become non-negotiable, and what the journey from first institutional check to exit really involves. Graham also shares what the best founders and operators he has worked with all have in common, why the P&L is the fastest way to understand any business, and what he wishes he had known earlier in his career about balancing quantitative rigor with the willingness to take a bet.

Listen in as they cover:

• What growth stage investing looks like and how it is different from early stage venture
• The difference between minority and majority investment — and what it means for founders thinking about dilution and control
• Why profitability has become the most important shift in how investors evaluate CPG businesses in the last two years
• What acquirers are actually looking for today: scale, margins, and omnichannel execution
• The milestones brands go through during a growth stage hold period — and what needs to happen before an exit
• Why understanding your consumer purchasing journey is just as important as understanding your P&L
• The founder and operator traits Graham respects most: deep business knowledge, humility, and genuine curiosity
• Why Graham made a bet on meat sticks with Righteous Felon — and what it says about how Ground Force thinks about riding trend waves without overexposing
• What the first investor meeting actually looks like — and the three things you need to communicate clearly
• Advice for anyone looking to break into CPG investing and how to set yourself apart
  
  

Whether you are fundraising, approaching a growth stage raise, or just trying to understand how later stage investors think about your business, this episode is packed with practical and honest insight.

Episode Links:
 
Ground Force Capital: https://www.groundforcecapital.com
Graham Garzon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grahamgarzon/

Don't forget to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify if you enjoyed this episode. For potential sponsorship opportunities or to join the Startup CPG community, visit http://www.startupcpg.com.

Show Links:

• Transcripts of each episode are available on the Transistor platform that hosts our podcast here (click on the episode and toggle to “Transcript” at the top)
• Join the Startup CPG Slack community (35K+ members and growing!)
• Follow @startupcpg
• Visit host Hannah's Linkedin 
• Questions or comments about the episode? Email Daniel at [e-mail]
• Episode music by Super Fantastics
  
  

Creators and Guests

Host

Hannah Dittman

Operations and Finance Correspondent at Startup CPG

What is The Startup CPG Podcast?

The top CPG podcast in the world, highlighting stories from founders, buyer spotlights, highly practical industry insights - all to give you a better chance at success.

Graham Garzon
The numbers are important, but they don't tell the whole story. I think you have to understand the trends in the market like we talked about. You have to understand the expansion plan like we talked about. You have to understand who your consumer is, why they're buying from you, where they're buying from you, and things like that. But a lot of the story around the consumer purchasing journey then informs the P and L, which then informs the expansion plan and capabilities, right? So everything is very interconnected and that's not just in cpg, but I think in other business models as well.

00:45
Hannah Dittman
Hey everybody. I'm Hannah Dittman, operations and finance host of the Startup CPG podcast. And today I'm joined by Graham Garzon from Ground Force Capital. Graham is a vice president at Ground Force where he plays a key role in sourcing, evaluating and diligencing new opportunities, as well as supporting portfolio companies as they scale. With a background across investment banking and private equity, he brings a strong fundamentals driven lens to CPG investing, combining analytical rigor with a hands on, founder friendly approach. He's a sharp, thoughtful investor who leads with humility and a real partnership mindset. In this episode, we get into growth stage investing, what diligence actually looks like from the investor side, and how founders should be thinking about building businesses that stand the test of time.

01:30
Hannah Dittman
We also break down what makes founders and operators stand out, how approaches to trends differ across stages, what milestones really matter in the growth journey, and why getting the fundamentals right early is so critical. If you're in the weeds building fundraising or just trying to better understand how investors are underwriting opportunities in today's market, this one is packed with actionable insight. Enjoy. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast. This is Hannah and today I am so excited to be here with Graham Garzon of Ground Force Capital. Graham, welcome to the show.

02:06
Graham Garzon
Thanks, Hannah. I'm excited to be here. I've listened to a lot of these already, so I'm excited to be able to contribute myself.

02:12
Hannah Dittman
Yeah, it's a long time coming. I know we chatted about this like ages ago back at one of our other events. So I'm excited to be doing this today. I'd love to hop straight in with an overview of your background and the path that led you to groundforce.

02:25
Graham Garzon
So I'm a vice president here on the investment team at Ground Force. We're a consumer growth equity fund which I can get into a little bit more. I've been with the team for almost four years now and I've taken a pretty conventional path in finance, I'd say to get to Ground Force. I was starting investment banking. I spent a few years there before joining Ground Force. I joined another private equity firm doing market buyouts in the healthcare services space and then had the opportunity to join the team here at Ground Force and have really been enjoying being in the consumer space. Interestingly, I actually had spent no time in consumer before joining Ground Force in banking I was a generalist, a lot of industrials in tech and then obviously my last firm was in the healthcare space.

03:11
Graham Garzon
But it's been interesting to draw parallels between the businesses I worked with back then and what I'm doing here at Ground Force.

03:17
Hannah Dittman
You've made it to the promised land. It's more fun in the CPG space. And the cool thing about consumer I mean it's a double edged sword but everyone is a consumer so it's a little easier to conceptually wrap your head around sometimes. Although that doesn't always mean that the business fundamentals come easy to understand or anything like that.

03:37
Graham Garzon
Exactly. Yeah. And I think there's an interesting amount of overlap too, especially between healthcare. One of the platforms I worked on at my last firm was a veterinary health platform which a lot of consumer funds today have exposure to businesses like that. And at the end of the day a lot of healthcare is consumer facing and so I think I was able to draw some good lessons from that experience and apply it here. But as you point out, business models are definitely different but can be on the simpler side in consumer as well.

04:05
Hannah Dittman
Yeah. And I think it's like how the world lives and operates all kind of stems back to people, how we make our day to day decisions and everything like that. So consumer really touches as every other industry. It's really cool that you get to pull on different experiences and I'm sure that's a value add as an investor to kind of have different lenses to pull from to provide insights to as well. I'd love to dive into a firm overview as well. Can you tell me a little bit more about groundforce? Your guys stage focus, check size, AUM criteria, mandate differentiation. Anything you want to tell me? The laundry list is long.

04:40
Graham Garzon
Yeah, we all have our differences at least on the investment firm side of things. So Ground Force is a consumer focused growth equity fund. We invest across the consumer landscape. I think most relevant for this podcast is what we do in the CPG world and really the DNA of our fund is in food and beverage. Both of our founders and managing partners are CPG entrepreneurs in their own backgrounds in their previous lives. And so we try to lean on that a lot in our day to day. And the companies that we look at and invest in here though, over the last three or four years there's been a very intentional expansion away from just cpg. And we also now spend time in things like multi unit. We invest in a restaurant, fast casual restaurant concept.

05:26
Graham Garzon
Last year we'll look at things like consumer enablement and that's including technology and services that enable empower a lot of the CPG brands that we're spending most of our time working with. So the overall focus from a category and industry perspective is quite wide. But most things under the consumer sun will focus on from a size perspective. So ground force is probably a bit later stage than some of the other groups you've had on the podcast and being at the more growth stage. And so we're looking to write checks typically between like 10 to 40 million, which is a fairly wide range. But our sweet spot's right in the middle, about 20 or 25. And that's typically in brands doing north of 15 or 20 million of revenue. But there's flexibility on a lot of this stuff as well.

06:13
Graham Garzon
At our core, we're minority investors. We do have a few majority positions, one in our current fund and one is our one in our previous fund. And we are open to secondary and things like that. But by and large we're relatively active investors. We will look to take a board seat, lean on some of the experience from Mark and Dan's background and things like that.

06:33
Hannah Dittman
I'd love to take a second. Just to clarify, minority versus majority investment. You kind of hear that thrown around a lot. Could you maybe explain that a little further for those listening in?

06:42
Graham Garzon
Absolutely. And maybe a good time to just delineate a little bit on the investment strategies of different firms. But most early stage investing is minority, which means we are taking ownership stakes less than 50% in businesses, non controlling ownership stakes, which is traditional for venture capital and a lot of growth equity. And then on the later stage you have private equity firms that are typically taking majority stakes or controlling ownerships in businesses. And there are a lot of consumer funds that do majority, a lot that do minority. And we're somewhere in the middle, hence we have a few investments, like I said, that we do kind of own a majority of.

07:22
Hannah Dittman
Super helpful context and I think that explains a lot to early stage founders who are thinking about being in the business for the long haul. It might be their first couple of fundraises. And when you're thinking about someone in taking majority share right away, what does that mean for your dilution down the road and how you're going to be controlling your business. So thank you so much for clearing that up. I'd love to pivot a little bit into some lessons learned in thought leadership given where you're sitting in the market for earlier stage brands that are listening in that maybe aren't in that growth sweet spot just yet. What kind of advice would you give them given you have the perspective of where brands scale and go to down the road a little bit further?

08:05
Graham Garzon
It's a great question Hannah, and I think it's one that has probably come to the foreground a lot in recent years. I think there's been a significant shift in how investors view financial profiles in businesses more broadly in the past two years said more directly with a focus on profitability. And I think where we sit at the growth stage are typically looking to be last institutional capital and before an eventual exit. And from a stage perspective that usually means investing in brands that have reached or are operating with a clear path to profitability. And so my answer to your question is I think really just being very thoughtful and diligent about building the business fundamentals to eventually scale to a self sustaining and profitable business, which can be very difficult in the consumer space.

08:57
Graham Garzon
A lot of the categories, beverage in particular, can be very capital intensive but I think fundamentally business models can be constructed in a way, whether that's leaning on affiliate marketing, that can be a cheaper or lower cost source to acquire customers and just maybe how you're using outsourced resources or something of the sort. I think that is what comes to mind first for me and I think can be really important for earlier stage brands and thinking about the longevity of what they're building.

09:25
Hannah Dittman
Are there any similarities or kind of commonalities you see within your portfolio, company or throughout your history of investing that you think winners or successful brands all have in common? Are there any kind of shining lights that you feel like? Oh yeah, everyone who has ended up making it has X, Y and Z at the core of their business in some capacity.

09:51
Graham Garzon
Yeah, I mean I think especially with how the exit landscape has evolved in consumer over the past few years and scale has become ever more important. A lot of the most successful brands that we see both in our portfolio and looking more broadly across the landscape are those that have built very sound omnichannel businesses and have the processes in place to keep track of a DTC business, keep track of an Amazon business, while also being Able to execute in retail, which we know comes with its own significant challenges and costs and things like that. And I think a lot of times different skill set in many ways.

10:30
Graham Garzon
And so I think not only does that come down to having a skill set to operate and execute, but I think making sure that your brand has a right to win, especially in retail, which has become very important for a lot of the strategic acquirers these days.

10:45
Hannah Dittman
Really helpful color and totally echoing your sentiments. We talked about CPG business fundamentals a little bit at the beginning. And totally different fundamentals in a lot of ways between the PNLs of a retail versus an online business. Amazon different than DTC as well. A lot of ways you could mismanage or misoperate that profitability that you're saying is so important. And totally different skill sets to win customers. The customer might be the same person across channels, but the way that they're finding you, shopping you and experiencing you are totally different depending the channel that you're operating in. And the margin structure of those will paint that picture as well. Is there anything that you wish that more founders or operators knew or understood coming from the investor side of the table that you find are frequently missed, either concepts or things that you wish.

11:41
Hannah Dittman
If people just understood this a little bit more clearly upfront, gosh, this would be a much easier road for them down the road.

11:48
Graham Garzon
Yeah. Interesting. I think a few ways you could take this question and one that occurs to me is just about what it actually means to work with an institutional investment firm. And I think taking on outside investors, whether it's from ground force, from angels or from later stage investment firms. The end of the day, I think we have our own requirements from a timeline perspective, from a relationship building perspective and information gathering perspective and things like that. And I think just recognizing that taking investment really means entering into a long term partnership with an investment firm for three to five to seven plus years. And the beautiful thing about it, I think is that in all cases everyone is focused on the same thing, right? Which is building an incredible business and bringing that to an incredible outcome for everyone.

12:43
Graham Garzon
I think the relationships are really tested in downtime is because I think all companies go through their own kind of speed bumps and trials and tribulations. And that's one of the fun parts about my job, frankly is helping companies being able to navigate some of those downturns. And I think not only recognizing the partnership you're entering into, but with whom you're entering it is very important and just making sure that you know the Investors and the partners as well as they know you before ultimately taking the investment.

13:12
Hannah Dittman
Well said and great words of wisdom there. Thinking a little bit more deeply about the kind of brands and companies that you all like to partner with, could you kind of give an overview of maybe the ideal profile or the types of businesses that really interest you from a characteristic standpoint? Happy to kind of use a portfolio company as an example to walk us through it as well.

13:38
Graham Garzon
Yeah, for sure. There is a wide range of profiles of businesses that get us excited and I think it really depends by category. We made two investments last year. One was in five unit at the time. Fast casual restaurant concept in la, I'd say was honestly a little bit on the smaller side than where we typically spend time. And then the next was a brand called Righteous Felon, which was a meat snacks brand that had grown to a really nice size bootstrapped business. So two somewhat different ends of the spectrum, but also in two completely different categories. I'd say a lot of what we look for in businesses comes down to some of the intangibles in just who the founding team is that's built the business to where is what some of the core fundamentals are and kind of core foundational metrics.

14:28
Graham Garzon
And I think this is part of where your question is going too. And a lot of that is just understanding health of the P and L. Right. What does your margin profile look like? What does that imply? And when I say margin profile, like gross margin and contribution margin are two very key metrics I think in the CPG world especially. And then what does the P and L look like below that? Right. Specifically, marketing expense for a lot of the emerging brands is the largest portion of their P and L, at least of their operating expenses. And I think you have lower margin categories like beverage that ultimately require longer hold periods in many cases to build kind of those sustainable. And businesses that are able to be acquired versus something like VMs and stick packs can have product margins, gross margins in 80%.

15:13
Graham Garzon
And that really just allows you to invest a lot more in marketing and sometimes power of growth more than other categories. And so I think it's balancing all this. Right. We know that a beverage brand is not going to have 80% margins. But we also recognize that there are other aspects of beverage brands that make them very attractive, like high velocities in retail, quick scale to reach and things like that. So it's difficult to point to one thing. But I think oftentimes at the growth stage, the companies that we're investing in have enough historical track record for us to really do a lot of diligence and dig in and use these historical trends to inform what we think the business can do over our hold period.

15:55
Graham Garzon
And I think it takes understanding their P and L and the health of that to accurately and confidently forecast out what we'll ultimately need to believe.

16:03
Hannah Dittman
Super helpful and thank you so much for all the color. You're talking about hold periods and working through an investment towards eventual, ideally, acquisition. What are some of the ways or milestones that you see companies go through during your hold periods? What's the story of getting involved with growth capital? What are businesses hoping to unlock and where are they at in their journey thus far when they come to a stage of being ready for someone like you?

16:31
Graham Garzon
For sure. Yeah. I'd say the most typical profile of a CPG business that we're looking at is one that has either a substantial DTC business and is looking to expand into retail, but doesn't have much traction yet, but needs growth capital to really invest behind the pipe fills and retail expansion, build out its supply chain or something of the like. And on the other side, you have a business that has an established omnichannel presence but has significant retail expansion coming up and similarly needs capital to invest behind that.

17:08
Graham Garzon
So I think it's oftentimes businesses that have really established a strong product market fit, really understand who their consumer is and have reached an inflection point in their growth where a little bit of growth capital in partnership from an investment firm and the operating knowledge that we have can kind of power them to that next level.

17:30
Hannah Dittman
Super helpful brands are coming to you and you're getting excited because they've had a proof of concept, they've had traction for a few years, they've proved that they have a customer base, they have a PNL that makes financial sense, they have the ability and the opportunities ahead of them to scale and grow. What needs to happen from that point to the point of an acquisition that would get an acquirer really excited to eventually take on that business? Like, what are exits really all about and what are acquirers really looking for?

18:06
Graham Garzon
I think in today's CPG world, it feels like acquirers are acutely focused on scale and margins. And it depends by category, as a lot of these nuanced answers and questions do. We've seen most of the M and A activity in the consumer space be focused on brands with well north of 100 million of revenue. And typically these brands are healthily profitable with EBITDA margins 10 to 20% and not always are acquirers focused that much on EBITDA? It's obviously a very big consideration, but I think frequently strategic acquirers especially can see some rationalization and ability to minimize costs in a post acquisition company.

18:50
Graham Garzon
But there are also plenty of private equity acquirers like we talked about before, which will be far more focused on the cash flow profile of these businesses and therefore the ability to put debt on the balance sheet and power a lot of their returns.

19:04
Hannah Dittman
Well said. Great points and I think make a ton of sense as we're talking about the investment spectrum, if you will. Early stage investors are thinking a lot more about narrative, opportunity, brand story, problem, solution. And the further you go down the investing spectrum and the later stage you focus on, the more a lot of the financial structure and things like that start to matter a lot more. And I think that just is really showcased in your point that when you're thinking that you're kind of at the preceding step before an acquisition, those things become paramount and there isn't that much time left.

19:41
Graham Garzon
Right.

19:42
Hannah Dittman
To optimize them and really dial it in. Of course there's time for growth and fixing things that might need a little bit of expansion or things like that, but you're not going to fundamentally change a business fundamental 180 degrees in just a few years.

19:56
Graham Garzon
Yeah, it's a really good point. I mean, I think when a lot of investors started to approach the CPG market differently and I think with a focus on profitability, I think to your point, that's not a change you can make overnight. Right? Those are fundamental changes in a business model, in organizational structure, that are required in many cases to change a founder or management team's mindset from growth, growth to profitable growth. It's not done easy and not done overnight. And I think we bring some of that expertise. Having worked with brands through the earlier stages into their later stages of their evolution and have seen how these management teams have built out their organization, have staffed the retail business, have staffed the DTC business, and ultimately built a platform that's attractive to an exit.

20:46
Hannah Dittman
That makes a lot of sense. And obviously the investment portfolio company relationship is a unique one and you're tackling a lot of these thoughts and challenges together, especially as the company continues to grow and the milestones get bigger. What are some areas or questions or problems that you think founders and operators should be really proactive and excited about leveraging an investment partner to tackle alongside them?

21:11
Graham Garzon
Yeah, look, I think typically in our intelligence processes we spend a lot of time getting to know who the founders are on a personal level and also what drives them professionally. And I think in many ways founders should proactively ask the same about us. Right? What are our goals for the investment, what are our timelines and where does our expertise lie? As I mentioned before, Ground Force has our two founders, our CPG entrepreneurs. We lean on that a lot. We have built a bench of operating advisors with whom we work closely in diligence in post close and a lot of board roles. And so I think from a founder's perspective, just understanding how we'll look to be involved post investment, because that really changes by firm and I think by stage as well. Typically earlier stage funds can be a little bit more passive.

22:01
Graham Garzon
That's definitely not all of them, but they're typically making more investments in a fund and thus don't have as much bandwidth. Whereas on the growth stage, we're typically very dedicated to our portfolio companies and like to lean in as much as we can, where we can, while at the same time acknowledging that we're in the business of backing and supporting management teams and founders. And as non controlling investors, we're betting on that team to bring the business to the next level. And we just want to be there as a point of support, be a thought partner, be there asking constructive questions and things like that.

22:36
Hannah Dittman
That concept of control and business decisions and evaluating teams and all of that really comes into play because as investors you're not coming in to run a business or take it over or dictate everything. You're there to partner and provide capital and additional resources and thought partnership to drive a company forward in its success journey. But the players on the field still need to be able to play. Are there any traits or characteristics that you think are really important or common amongst founders and operators that you really respect or have really enjoyed working with?

23:15
Graham Garzon
Yeah, look, I think some of the best founders and operators with whom we work are ones that have really in depth knowledge and understanding of their core business and of their core consumer. And I think it typically shown through being able to answer questions without referencing multiple things or multiple people. And I think there's a balance to that. Right. Like, I also think a strong trait amongst operators is humility and recognizing what they don't know and surrounding themselves around the right leadership team and the right advisors. I think those are some of the bigger traits that pop up for me.

23:52
Hannah Dittman
I feel like that's echoed in almost everyone you want to work with. Like when you're thinking about hiring someone as well, even on the investor side, I think those are traits that really resonate across the business spectrum. You want someone with an ownership mentality who really understands and has command and control of whatever they're in charge of, but also humble enough and team oriented enough to be copacetic and pleasant to work alongside and to really be able to take input or admit when they don't know something and they need to go check on it and dig a little further. And I think that integrity piece is so important. You as an investor, you're pretty much solely relying on them to be reporting to you accurate information and giving you accurate information.

24:35
Hannah Dittman
I mean, for those who don't know, it's not like as an investor, once you invest in a company, you now are all of a sudden in all of the emails that everyone else is in or on all the calls, you're not internal to the company per se. You're relying on your constituents within the company to be reporting important updates and information to you quickly and clearly and accurately. So that's a lot of trust building those traits provide as well.

25:01
Graham Garzon
Absolutely. And I think just like a level of curiosity and eagerness to learn. I think that comes with the humility. I think that comes with knowing who you are and again, knowing your business and the strengths and weaknesses of that.

25:14
Hannah Dittman
Looking back on your investment career thus far, is there anything you wish you knew at the beginning that you've learned over time now, or anything that you kind of would tell your younger self that would have made the road maybe a little bit easier as you've gone through your career?

25:29
Graham Garzon
That's an interesting question. I mean, I think I personally can be maybe more risk averse than a lot of my investing peers, especially on the earlier side of things. I think coming from a more technical background, from private equity, I typically look at things through a very quantitative lens and I think sometimes that is to my fault. And so I've gotten a lot better, I think, especially since joining ground force at getting more comfortable with taking some of these risks. And it's an interesting balance because so much of entrepreneurship, I think, is entrepreneurs typically taking very calculated risks and sometimes not as calculated. But it's something that I continue to learn at and I'm excited every day by speaking with founders who are probably a lot less risk averse than me.

26:17
Hannah Dittman
Yeah, it's such a well said and interesting point. I empathize intimately with that tension point too. The quintessential component of a founder is you're so risk on. Obviously you're thoughtful, but you're ready to kind of Take a huge bet on yourself and run with it. You're trying new things. You're always innovating. If something's been done before exactly the way it should be done, it doesn't really always make sense for a founder to go pursue that. And on the investor side, the incentive structure for risk appetite, especially on the later stage, is completely misaligned to that. The two problems you're solving, even though you're involved in the same businesses, are completely different. An investor's job is to make returns and to try not to make a wrong choice, and a founder's job is to create something new and build.

27:04
Hannah Dittman
So it's an interesting grappling point that one, and an interesting thing that presents itself, I think, working through problems with founders, I'm sure, where the inclination of one might not be the inclination of another. And I think can be a really beautiful thing that an investment partner can provide in a board meeting or with a founder, as well as additional thought layer and additional thought partnership support where you can think through things a little bit more strategically together.

27:31
Graham Garzon
Exactly. Yeah. I think eventually you'll need to be on the podcast interviewing yourself because I know you don't give yourself credit for your investment background.

27:38
Hannah Dittman
No, I mean, you've got a lot more years on me in that space for sure. How have trends affected your sector focus? Obviously on the later stage side, you guys aren't like hopping into these quick turn trends and you're not as focused on novelty as maybe early stage investors are. But you're still, I'm sure, monitoring and thinking about market shifts and consumer behaviors. So what's top of mind for you all personally or at ground force when you're thinking through investment theses and where you want to be spending time?

28:09
Graham Garzon
Yeah, it's a really good question and one that I think all investors are asking themselves is because in the consumer space especially, there are so many trends that emerge on annual basis. And I think some are here to stay and some aren't. And I think one that's the top of mind right now is protein. Right? And last year we made investment in a protein snack, essentially being meat sticks in righteous filling. And some ways it's like looking back at history. What do consumers fall back on time and time again? And I think oftentimes it is natural products. It is products that come from the earth in many ways. And I think Meatsix is a good example of writing a trend like protein without, I'd say, more unique ways of getting consumers the protein that they're in the market for.

28:56
Graham Garzon
As just an example, I think of how we've thought about these trends in terms of actually analyzing them. It can be quite difficult. A lot of times what we focus on is just going back to the business fundamentals. Right. Like a business that is spending a dramatic amount of their revenue on marketing to capitalize on trends doesn't necessarily mean you're building a sustainable business. However, businesses that have a P and L that's healthy, I think there's a lot less risk in riding a trend wave if that makes sense. And I think also just enables them to weather any storms that might arise if trends are peaking or dipping.

29:32
Hannah Dittman
Very poignant and I think very well said. And I think what you're saying is so true. You want to anchor on consumer behavioral shifts that you can really bet on and trust will continue. I think your point of protein in a staple category where it logically makes so much sense that protein's just naturally part of it and playing the protein trend, if you will, that way makes a ton of sense and kind of an example of a de risked investment that's still aligned with a consumer behavior shift that makes a ton of sense. And then going back to business fundamentals I think will never steer you wrong.

30:07
Hannah Dittman
If you've built a relationship and a rapport and repeat purchases with a customer base, as long as you don't foresee some crazy external factor happening, it builds a lot more confidence that will continue versus kind of thinking the next hot thing is out there and people are going to get excited about it. So well said and a really intelligent way to be thinking about investing.

30:27
Graham Garzon
Yeah, and I probably haven't spent enough time on fundamentals outside of the P and L, which I think can be equally important, especially for a lot of the CPG businesses that we're evaluating that have presence in retail. Just understanding the health of their retail performance. I think the key metric there typically is velocities and there's a lot of different ways to cut that data. But overall just understanding the trends of things like velocities, understanding the white space that remains in key accounts as well as new accounts and on the DTC side, it's typically customer acquisition metrics and things like that are top of mind for us in our reviews.

31:06
Hannah Dittman
Graham, great point. And I think a lot of times people can get caught up in sell in and what's on their P and L and forget to kind of think about sell through and truly quantifying or evaluating consumer demand in that way that allows you to forecast your Business forward with a lot more ease. So really great points and I think just to take it a step further, a little bit more meta. I think being able to understand your business in terms of the customer journey and painting that narrative through numbers versus hyper fixating on your own P and L. If you really understand how am I getting customers, how costly is it for me to get customers, what's my relationship with this customer, how many times are they coming back to me, where are they shopping me?

31:52
Hannah Dittman
All of those type of high level questions will lead you to really compelling business decisions that will make a bigger impact in your business than just fixating solely on like we need revenue to go up 20% hyper fixating on that revenue number. There's a story and a picture painted way behind that matters even more.

32:12
Graham Garzon
Very well said. Said it better than I did. And you had asked me a question. Yeah, no, it's absolutely true. Right. The numbers are important, but they don't tell the whole story. I think you have to understand the trends in the market like we talked about. You have to understand the expansion plan like we talked about. You have to understand who your consumer is, why they're buying from you, where they're buying from you and things like that. But a lot of the story around the consumer purchasing journey then informs the P and L, which then informs the expansion plan and capabilities, right? So everything is very interconnected and that's not just in cpg, but I think in other business models as well. And I think as investors, again we can be very quantitative.

32:54
Graham Garzon
Speaking for myself especially, so really focusing on that to get a good understanding. And early in my career someone told me the best way to learn a business is to understand their P and L. And I think that's so true because you really understand like what the products are selling, what is the revenue model in cpg, it's oftentimes price times volume. Like it can be fairly simple, but drilling into that can be much more complicated. And working your way down, you start to understand the supply chain in cogs, right? You understand the organizational development and build and operating expenses. You understand the customer acquisition journey through marketing, right.

33:29
Graham Garzon
And so working your way down a P and L can give anyone, but especially us in the investor seat, a really quick and thorough understanding of how these business models are actually working and operating and what tweaks might be needed to take the business to the next level and if it's saving some expenses here to over invest in DTC there or vice versa. All really important things to consider. But a lot of times start with the basic business fundamentals, that is the money coming in and the money going out.

33:59
Hannah Dittman
So beautifully said. And I think you're touching one of the most fun, exciting parts of investing, which is you're seeing a business for the first time and you're figuring out the story of it, putting all the puzzle pieces together on your own in the diligence process. And that's how you're understanding so many insights and learning a business independently of just being told it from the founder. And not just the story, but you're kind of putting all these quantitative pieces together to get a qualitative picture of what's going on and then crafting an investment thesis around it. I don't know if all of our listeners understand how much of a factor that part of the fundraising journey comes into play because it's kind of done behind the scenes of the investment shop. But that's so much of what's going on in a diligence process.

34:45
Hannah Dittman
It's constantly asking yourself questions, why is this? Why what is happening here? What am I missing about this business? What am I seeing in this business? And I think it's a really cool piece and why investors are so sharp and have so much pattern recognition and understand things so quickly is they're puzzle piecing all day and it's a really cool, interesting part of the job. I could ask you a million questions, Graham. I feel like we're just scratching the surface of your knowledge and your intellect. I know you have so many interesting takeaways and things you've seen, but I'd love to pivot into a Slack question and give you a chance. Answer that. As you know, startup CPG has the largest Slack community in the industry with now over 35,000 members.

35:28
Hannah Dittman
I'd love to pull a question directly from our channel and have you answer it as a case study for any founders with a similar question. Today's question is how long does the first investor meeting last and what is the blocking and tackling of it?

35:41
Graham Garzon
Awesome. I think the first investor meeting, whether you're a pre revenue company or at a growth stage, is typically fairly similar. And then what most of those look like for us is a 30 minute meeting. Getting to know the founder, sharing background on ground force and why we're differentiated and kind of hearing the pitch. And I think a lot of times that's understanding the problem you're after, understanding how you're solving a problem, understanding what you've done historically. If you're not pre revenue and have some historicals to point to and ultimately what your goals are. Right. Why are we talking? What are your goals with that capital and what are you looking for in a partnership? And I think that's fairly consistent across the stages of investing. When you get to more later stage, it can be, I'd say more formalized in longer meetings.

36:31
Graham Garzon
But by and large, even at the growth stage, we're dealing with shorter meetings and the blocking and tackling is just understanding your pitch. Right. What is my market, what is the problem I'm after and how am I solving that problem?

36:43
Hannah Dittman
I love how you boiled that up for us. And I think founders can be so stressed and work so hard to even get that meeting that their focus is so on getting the meeting and not always thinking through, okay, what's now the goal of this meeting? And I think the way you said it is great. Why are we talking? And just having that in the back of your mind of the command and control of where you're trying to drive that meeting, obviously towards an investment, but breaking it down into what they need to hear to understand where you're coming from, I think is great advice.

37:16
Hannah Dittman
Thank you so much for chatting with me today and for all the insights you shared and all of the anecdotes and wisdom and knowledge for founders that might want to get in touch with you and continue the conversation or think they might be a fit for ground force. Where can they follow along with you or what's the best way for them to get in touch? And second part of my question, do you have any advice or opportunities with your firm for those interested in joining investing in general?

37:43
Graham Garzon
Yeah. To reach me, feel free to shoot me an email or add me on LinkedIn. My email is my first name, grahamroundforcecapital.com there's also a form online on our website. You can submit in the email structures of other people on my team, me or mine. And then if you're looking to get into investing or ground force, I mean, look, every path is different. I think some people take a more conventional route. And typically, I think later stage investing has generally comes with the more traditional finance background not required. But on the earlier stage, there are plenty of people who start in operating capacity and eventually work their way into venture capital. I think what's most important is genuine curiosity about investing, about the spaces in which you're investing. And I encourage everyone to just network as best you can.

38:32
Graham Garzon
Reach out to me, reach out to others, start to build a network and kind of set yourself apart that way.

38:37
Hannah Dittman
Well, Graham, you're so sharp, so intelligent, such a thoughtful investor and also so humble. And thank you so much for being here today. We're really lucky that you joined us and happy to have the conversation with you.

38:50
Graham Garzon
Thanks so much Hannah. It was a pleasure.

38:53
Hannah Dittman
Well friends, we've now arrived together at the end of another episode of the Startup CPG podcast, the top globally ranked podcast in cpg. And if you love this podcast, you'll love our Slack community even more. Here at Startup cpg we're a community of brands and experts and you should join. Sign up @startupcpg.com you'll then get an invite to our online Slack community of over 35,000 All Star CPG members, hear about amazing events near you and all our special opportunities to get you in front of buyers and investors, brands and more. It's a free community. So what are you waiting for? I'll catch you on the next episode and I'll see you on the Slack.