The Startup CPG Podcast


In this Investor Spotlight, host Hannah Dittman sits down with Ryan Ball, founder of Sperian Ventures, to unpack the data, mindset, and founder qualities he looks for before writing a check into an early-stage CPG brand.


Ryan's path into investing started almost by accident, coordinating a group investment while getting his MBA at the McCombs School of Business. That first deal evolved into Sperian Ventures, an angel network that pools capital into individual deals. Ryan brings a founder's perspective to every evaluation - he's started a spice company of his own and now runs a freight logistics company that gives him a front-row seat to the operational realities CPG brands face day to day.


Hannah and Ryan dig into the metrics and data Ryan needs to see before considering an investment, why he sees pivots as a good sign rather than a red flag, the founder qualities that consistently stand out in a pitch, and what founders across different CPG subcategories should expect when it comes to fundraising.


Listen in as they discuss:

  • Why Ryan almost always requires sales velocity data - especially pre-, during-, and post-promo - before considering an investment
  • Why Ryan sees pivots as a positive signal rather than a red flag
  • The revenue range and business maturity Sperian typically looks for in a CPG brand
  • How Ryan's own founder and logistics experience shapes his diligence conversations
  • The founder qualities that get Ryan excited, from listening skills to staying level-headed under pressure
  • What "give the investor no reason to say no" means in practice when preparing to raise
  • Why LTV and category-specific limitations (like kids products founders age out of) matter to investors
  • The consumer trend Ryan is most drawn to right now: simple, clean-label products with few ingredients
  • What a special purpose vehicle (SPV) is and how Ryan's angel network structures individual deals
  • How to get in touch with Sperian Ventures if you're raising or interested in joining the investor network



Episode Links:


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:

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.

Ryan Ball
I think the good ones are the ones that don't go too fast. Obviously there is like an urgency. You want to scale up your product and you want to get it in the market before a competitor beats you or anything like that. But like really takes the time to understand their market position, goes through like the bullseye process of figuring out what works on your marketing, really listens to the customers so that when it is time to raise and time to grow, all that work, you're pulling back the slingshot.

00:38
Hannah Dittman
Hey everyone, I'm Hannah Dittman, Finance and Operations host of the Startup CPG podcast and today I'm excited to be joined by Ryan Ball, founder of Sperian Ventures. Ryan is a former founder and entrepreneur who knows firsthand what it takes to build and scale a business. In addition to leading Sperian Ventures, an investment group that backs high potential startups through an SPV model, he also operates a freight logistics company, giving him a unique perspective on the operational challenges founders face every day. Drawing on his own entrepreneurial experience, Ryan intimately understands the founders he meets with and brings a practical, founder focused approach to evaluating companies and supporting them as they grow.

01:18
Hannah Dittman
In this episode we explore the metrics Ryan believes matter most when evaluating early stage businesses, the consumer categories that are currently capturing his attention, and how Sperian Ventures SPV investment model differs from a traditional venture fund. We also walk through Sperian's diligence and investment process, discuss the founder qualities that consistently stand out, and share practical advice for entrepreneurs preparing to raise capital. Whether you're beginning your fundraising journey or looking to better understand how experienced investors evaluate opportunities, this episode is full of actionable insights you don't want to miss.

01:53
Ryan Ball
Enjoy.

01:58
Hannah Dittman
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast. This is Hannah and today I'm excited to be here for an investor spotlight with Ryan Ball of Sperian Ventures. Ryan, welcome to the show.

02:09
Ryan Ball
Hi Hannah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

02:11
Hannah Dittman
Thank you for being here. I'd love to dive straight in and get a brief background of your journey through consumer and industries and the path that led you to Sperian today.

02:21
Ryan Ball
Yeah, so it's probably a more unique story. I was getting my MBA and I was a part of what was called the McCombs Entrepreneurship Organization when I was doing it. And we would host AMAs and panels and have meetups to just do Q and A internally of just like, hey, how do you address this problem? What's your experience? Whatever. We had a lot of questions about investing, about venture capital and it kind of got to a point where I said, would you guys be interested in doing a deal if we can find one? And they said yes. So I made some phone calls and someone gave me a minimum check size to get in on a deal that looked interesting. I brought it to the group and said, hey, if you guys collectively can put together this much money, we can make this investment.

03:06
Ryan Ball
And we did it. And that was a CPG deal. And then we just kept doing it. And it's just evolved over time as sort of this like SPV model, kind of like angel network thing where myself and my partner Steven, just from our own deal flow, which kind of ebbs and flows, we just get all these opportunities and if we think there's something that's interesting enough to give to the group, we want to QA it a little bit. But at the end of the day, we're not making decisions on investments, but we want to bring them something that we know are going to be winners. We present it to the group, they raise their hand if they want to put in funds, and we take it from there and spin up an SBV.

03:42
Ryan Ball
And, you know, aside from CPG, which we're like 50% CPG, 50% tech, I also started a spice company called Ball Foods and I did this also during grad school. I was very busy at this time. And so I'd been through that whole founder's journey. And then, you know, now I run a logistics company and logistics are a big part of the success for scaling a CPG company. A, it helps me on diligence. I understand what their supply chain system looks like. And then B, it's also like a way for me to add value to the company in addition to just being a multiple founder. Prior to this, anyway, I'm very much more an entrepreneur than a standard vc. I wouldn't even say that I'm a venture capitalist, to be honest. Those are just the kind of deals we end up doing.

04:27
Ryan Ball
But I vet it from a perspective of like, what I know and because of what I know and my logistics company, who we work with, it inevitably leads us to early stage companies and they're raising money and then it's like, okay, well, we have this fund. I'd like to look at your deck, if you don't mind. And. And we just take it from there.

04:45
Hannah Dittman
Awesome background. And you've definitely seen the world from many different angles, which I think is exciting and very helpful as you empathize with founders and also navigate that through the investment process with them. It's always nice to be speaking with someone who intimately understands some of the things that you're saying and going through at the time. I'd love to dive into an overview of Sperian specifically, but before we do that, I wanted to double click on a term that you were using, spv. Could you explain a little bit more about what that means and what that entails from an investment perspective?

05:17
Ryan Ball
Yeah. So an spv, it's a means special purpose vehicle. It basically just means we put together a singular LLC for each investment. So all of our investors into that round from our network, they become owners in that llc. That LLC has a bank account attached to it. We write a check to the company. So the company just gets one check from one entity, but we've put it together for the special purpose of being the management place of that investment.

05:45
Hannah Dittman
Is there any difference for a founder experience to. To go through with an SPV versus maybe a different style of round or check?

05:55
Ryan Ball
Yeah, I mean, the similarities are certainly there. From a diligence perspective, we ask for specific questions. There's KPIs that matter where they are in the stage of their company. The difference is I've looked at some amazing deals that don't always go through and part of that is because the group just simply doesn't like it or enough people don't like it sometimes. Part of that is just timing, which is really unfortunate. You know, just like if we've done too many deals, the well kind of runs dry. So it's just like, sorry, it's bad timing, we can't do it right now. I try to be upfront about all of these things in the beginning and went through a big overhaul. Actually, the fund Sperian is a new name for our fund, our project, and we did have some companies that we met.

06:37
Ryan Ball
It was the opportunities were there and were trying to hurry through the process. Like, hey, you're going to have to bear with us. We're moving a little slow right now because we're updating things. So, you know, sometimes there's just timing issues. You know, I guess that's what I'm getting at. And I just try to be as upfront about what makes us different as possible in the beginning. And hopefully that doesn't lead too much disappointment because I would write checks in a lot more companies than we end up writing checks in. But, you know, that's not how it works. Right.

07:03
Hannah Dittman
It's like the group consensus. How many people are typically involved in each funding process.

07:10
Ryan Ball
The network is around 100 right now. And it's been kind of carefully built over time. And then I'd say it's usually much smaller groups that make investments. And we have some people that are much more frequent than others. I think you probably end up with like 10 or 15, maybe less, depending on the size of the deal. And it's like the minimum check size can create usually leads to more investments depending on the stage of the company.

07:33
Hannah Dittman
Right. That makes a ton of sense. I'd love to further dive into Sperian a little bit and understand your criteria stage size that you're focusing on, average check size, mandate and all the different attributes that you're looking for investable businesses.

07:49
Ryan Ball
So I wouldn't say this is exclusive, but I'd say for the vast majority we want to be investing in scaling something. You know, early stage brands, they have an idea, sometimes it could be something incredible with an incredible team. You know, those deals exist out there. I don't know that we're always seeing them. Like the ones that get funded with a napkin idea don't normally come to us. I think for a CPG company you need to be in the like 1 to 10 million range is probably, you know, for revenue. Like when we're getting involved, like you've got it worked out. You've probably done a few pivots. I really like to see pivots because it shows like trial and error. You're not really married to anything. You're looking for product fit. You know that like hearing those stories is always big.

08:30
Ryan Ball
How present you are in retail is not necessarily a requirement. But I think it's rarer for a brand to come to us that's doing like very heavy E commerce. That isn't always also in retail, you know, so you definitely have to have some sales partnerships, some retail presence, like some data. We cannot make a decision without data. Like we have to see velocity. That's like the number one thing that any founder raising money for a CPG company should have really good Velocity data in their deck. And my personal preference, I like to see pre promo, during a promo and post promo because that'll tell me a lot about the rebuy rate in general for the product. And then like how well do the promos work? It starts to paint a picture of like, what's the scalability going to be of this?

09:16
Ryan Ball
Like, do we just need to get this on taste buds or is there something more elaborate to the sales cycle? You know, you just don't know until you look into it.

09:24
Hannah Dittman
Are there any lessons learned that you're pulling forward from your own entrepreneurial experience that helps you in a diligence or evaluation process particularly.

09:34
Ryan Ball
Yes. I think I seem to notice that I can get into a pretty casual conversation with the entrepreneur because I am an entrepreneur and like, really kind of. It's not a very stiff diligence process. You know, I can be, oh, did you deal with this? Yeah, that's a pain. You know, like talking about changes and struggles and bottlenecks and all those kind of things. Just really conversationally. Through that, I'm just getting to know the entrepreneur, like, trying to, like, really feel them out like a real deal, you know, what happened when you ran into a roadblock here, you know, and bring up something that I've encountered specifically that relates to that deal of some struggle that just shows me what their character's like. It's not how hard you work, it's how hard it is to stop you most of the time.

10:19
Ryan Ball
So for these deals, if CPG is a tough space, you're gonna have some struggles. You need to be able to fight through them. And then on top of that, like, how creative are you at navigating those? I get that from like a storytelling perspective. I usually pull those answers out. I don't that all VCs can do that, but I haven't said in a lot of their meetings.

10:37
Hannah Dittman
Very interesting. I'd love to also better understand your diligence process in general and what it looks like end to end working with spurion. What's the beginning process? Deal sourcing activity like, and then how does it flow through the rest of the process all the way to funding?

10:53
Ryan Ball
Yeah. So deal sourcing is. It's very much a network thing for us. You know, we're not necessarily, like, marketing our services necessarily. I also own a logistics company. I mentioned this before. Rockwell Services. We do a lot of CPG freight. It's effectively the same funnel as looking for these investments. Because I like to find companies early, you know, when the founders are taking off hats and I'm like, look, I'm a founder. I get it. Like, I've done this. Like, let me help you. Give me a hat. And I will expand your bandwidth. You focus on sales, and I'll take care of the logistics part. Inevitably, they're all early enough that they're raising money. And if it. It's like, I want to work with the same companies that I also want to invest in because I, like, there's upside here. They're going to make it.

11:36
Ryan Ball
Inevitably, I just say, like, look, I You know, I have this investment fund that I also run, Sperian. We'd love to take a look if you can share your details. I'd say that's the majority of the time, how the flow comes through after that. We need to see a deck. I like to see a data room. A little bit of time to go through it. We have this initial list of questions that we like the founder to answer directly. This also helps us share information with our network. Kind of simulates that like communication direct to the investors instead of us having to filter too much. We don't want to redo it, but we do put our opinions with a disclaimer that like, this isn't a recommendation, this is just Ryan's thoughts.

12:13
Ryan Ball
And then we maybe have a meeting or two to fill in the blanks. After that, we present the opportunity to the group with a form to express interest, if there is interest, where there's usually a follow up. And we like to get the founder in front of the group as well. So we'll do like an online meeting where they can kind of run through the deck in their own words and then go through some Q and A. And after that, maybe a little bit of email follow up and then we do the deal and we try to condense that maybe to only a week or two if we can. I mean, we're moving a lot faster now than we used to. We've really modernized our process. And then beyond that, I really like to stay on as an advisor.

12:52
Ryan Ball
I'd say, like, look, we've made the investment. Like, let me help you work through. Come to me if you want the help. Someone's got to want help, they've got to ask for it. But I weigh out my credentials as like, look, obviously logistics. I can be helpful. I've done a dozen startups or so. I can be helpful there at management consulting and strategy. You know, like, there's all these different ways that I think I can add value in addition to just writing the check. And I think for any founder, they should be asking the question when they're raising money. Like, what else am I going to get out of this relationship besides you writing me a check?

13:23
Ryan Ball
Like, you know, you want to find the smart money that's adding a lot of value and like cares about like seeing their investment succeed and puts in effort to get it there. It's not always the case. From my perspective. I think that's what they should be looking for.

13:35
Hannah Dittman
That makes a ton of sense and that's so true and well said. I feel like, especially if you're doing well, you've built something that is working on its own and now you're trying to grow it further. You don't want to just give that all away and all that hard work for something that isn't going to give you the absolute best shot at future success. The same way that you wouldn't do that with any other aspect of your business. You know, you wouldn't go through a marketing campaign or hire a new person that you didn't think was going to be just a plus athlete on your team.

14:07
Hannah Dittman
So I think a similar mindset through the fundraising process, although, of course, getting capital and the need for capital and all of that can add a layer of emotional anxiety and stress that can definitely be there in that scarcity mindset. But I think having conviction in your partners, as you're mentioning, picking the best one that's best suited for your business is really important as well. If you could tell founders or operators one piece of advice that you think you've gleaned from fundraising or from your other work experiences or from working alongside businesses logistically or anything like that, what would it be and why?

14:44
Ryan Ball
Well, definitely you want to track good data. And I don't just mean like quantitative spreadsheets. I mean like verifiable information that confirms whatever you're trying to sell, both as a product and from a fundraising perspective. You need to be fundraising from a position of confidence, like, this is a good opportunity. I have proven this is a good opportunity. We need capital because we simply don't have enough to move fast enough or we don't have enough to realize the true potential of this. But if you really have that proven, that thing, like, I have a software project that I'm working on right now, this is off to the side. And the question for anything like that is like, can you sell it? And it's like, I didn't start getting into the fundraising position until I had already sold it to a few people.

15:32
Ryan Ball
I'm like, yes, I've made a few phone calls. It was easy. We can do it. I can do more of this. You know, like showing that you've done that. And that's not necessarily applicable to cbg. I think for that, it's just sales velocity is going to tell that. Paint that picture. If you have E Comm. Great data because you can see, like the civic person how frequently individual peoples are rebuying and get your revive velocity rate. But anyway, maybe trailed off a little bit too much there, but I'd Say, having really good data and then making decisions from a position of confidence, like, don't lie to yourself. Really find out if the market wants this. Really find out what's working and what's not working and abandon what's not quick and move on to what is.

16:10
Hannah Dittman
That's a great piece of advice. And I feel like it's easy to be overwhelmed with coming to that point, especially because there's so many different factors that go into a business. It's really hard to pinpoint down one specific thing, you know, because if you don't have your repeat rates, there's a million things that could be wrong with a product, or maybe it's something to do with marketing or something completely different, or the. Even the size of the packaging or there could be so many things going on. So I also think, like you're saying being really data driven, but also kind of being a detective and being willing to continue to pull back the layers of the onion until you feel like you really have a good understanding for what's going on behind that data is equally as important.

16:52
Hannah Dittman
And being willing to kind of ask questions to your customer base too. I think that's where you're going to get best information sometimes, like customer surveys and just really understanding what's going on and the portion of the journey that you can no longer see when it's in someone's hands or home. And getting that information can be really valuable and critical for founders, for sure.

17:12
Ryan Ball
Yeah, good point.

17:13
Hannah Dittman
Is there anything that you wish that you knew at the beginning of your investing career or your career in general that you know now that you feel like you're carrying forward and happy to have learned?

17:25
Ryan Ball
Yeah, I'd say two things. One, I've been the. The young swing for the fences. I've got a unicorn idea entrepreneur before. And you kind of need a lot of that naive confidence and momentum to make these things work. When I see that in people that we're investing in, I'm aware of it and I definitely, I don't try to. You don't want to squash it. It's valuable thing to keep them going. But you need to realize quick that you do not know what you do not know. And that is definitely the most important advice I've ever had. That's the really reason I went back to grad school was, you know, I'd been working as a startup founder while, you know, doing consulting and other things and doing a lot of trial and error, you know, really figuring things out.

18:11
Ryan Ball
And I felt like I kind of got To a point where I needed to know for sure what I was maybe missing, because I just didn't know what it was. And I think prior to that, I would have said, you don't. I'll say this consistently. You don't need an MBA to be an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is a type of person. You definitely don't need that. I'm not advocating for that. I just wanted to find out what maybe I was missing that I wasn't aware of, you know, to get more well rounded. And that was a good exercise. So definitely focusing on that. And then on the investment advice. This isn't every deal, but you're basically looking for reasons to say no a lot.

18:46
Ryan Ball
So I think if you think about the investor having that perspective and don't give them any reasons to say no, like, really think through again with confidence, like, all the things that they might want to know, like, don't leave those gaps, don't give them a reason to say no. Sounds simple, but it's valuable.

19:04
Hannah Dittman
Yes. And definitely hard to execute. But very well said. And I think reframing anything to be in the audience's mindset helps so much. Whatever you're trying to do, fundraising, no exception, of course, and really understanding how an investor might be approaching the situation and what they might be thinking about, I think is very sage advice. You know, you mentioned founders that have kind of a naive confidence or a certain excitement and seeing the potential of what they're doing. Maybe without saying all of the blind spots. Outside of that, are there any other key traits you look for in founders or you think characteristics that founders really need to be successful or that get you very excited about making an investment with them?

19:46
Ryan Ball
Yeah. So you definitely need to be open to learn. You know, someone talks over you a lot in a pitch. That's not a good sign. They really need to be ready to listen. Additionally, I mentioned this earlier, not being scared of failing and experimenting. Like, you can put tons of work into something, and especially when you're raising money, putting a lot of work into your deck and finish it and have to delete the whole thing and start over, you know, and that's just kind of part of it is you can't be afraid to, like, throw away something that you worked on when you know or you realize that it's not working. Don't lie to yourself just because the sunk cost of that work you put in. You have to be able to pivot.

20:24
Ryan Ball
So listening, pivoting, you definitely need to have a passion for your product and what you're Doing, because that alluded to it, that naive energy. Whether it's naive or not, you know, that's what's going to carry you through it. Because it's going to be tough doing this. Being an entrepreneur is tough. Doing a startup is really tough. And CPG is especially tough. It's a tough space. So you've really got to like what you're doing to get through it. So I like to see that energy, but nothing emotional. I've never seen anyone really get emotional in a pitch. I've noticed an edge on some people in some meetings. I'm just like, I don't know what's going on here, but there's something happened behind the scenes that I need to figure out before we can move forward here.

21:00
Ryan Ball
So presenting yourself and this, like, yes, I'm very excited about this and I'm a passionate person, but I'm not like, any sort of setback is not going to trigger emotional breakdown for me. You know, those kind of things.

21:12
Hannah Dittman
Yeah, for sure. I mean, man, are there a lot of setbacks on the foundry journey?

21:16
Ryan Ball
Oh, yeah. That's all it is. You're just managing fire, like fires, and trying to build around insanity.

21:23
Hannah Dittman
Everything is wrong until you're the one who makes it right. And then it goes wrong again, and then you make it right again. So it definitely is not for the faint of heart. And I think having the ability to emotionally regulate and kind of manage through that is a huge piece of. Of being able to be resilient and excited about what you're doing. I think if everything is catastrophe every time it goes wrong, it's not a very fun job, that is for sure.

21:47
Ryan Ball
Yeah.

21:48
Hannah Dittman
Are there any sectors, trends, consumer behavior shifts, or market insights right now that you're particularly excited about or focused on?

21:57
Ryan Ball
Oh, interesting. I did say that we're like 50% in software or tech. Obviously, AI is kind of everywhere right now and it's being put into things. But aside from that, but also because of it, there's a lot more accessibility into, like, really good feedback and intelligence for the performance of your company. We saw a deal recently that kind of plays in that space where it gives you, like, more intelligent analytics on your operations. You know, like, we see that in cbg. I've seen other industries too. Like, seeing those tools come up, that's really exciting. And it kind of like plays into the both of the lanes where we are, where it's like, okay, this is a really good tool for founders.

22:38
Ryan Ball
I'm liking seeing those, and I definitely want to see more I think there's going to be a lot of really, like, interesting dashboards in all industries, like popping up over the next five or ten years. For CPG specifically, it's honestly, it's kind of hard to say. Like I. There are so many good products right now and there's so many great founders and they're all kind of going in slightly different directions than each other. So it's like the macro trend I'm seeing a ton of is that there's a lot of passion about making these things and I think that maybe it's gotten a little easier to make them. Like co manufacturers have increased a lot. That's like big component of getting your product going.

23:18
Ryan Ball
So I don't know that I have like a great answer about, like, what that, like one thing that looks really interesting to me, one thing I do really like, and this is an oversimplification, I like how many products have few ingredients and all the words make sense. You know what I mean? Like, there's way more of that, especially as a father with kids. Having kids when you're an entrepreneur totally changes your mind. You're like thinking about like all these things you can invent for kids and you find out that, like, maybe you're a little late to the party on that because there's been a lot of other founders that have had kids and then they did the exact same thing. But I'm very conscious about what I give to my kids, like from a consumable perspective.

23:58
Ryan Ball
So whenever I see something that looks very clean, I don't see natural flavors on it. The brand is good, the team is good. I can see the path to market and success and maybe an exit. Like, those things I do get excited about as a father, but obviously that's not the entire market. I do think that's a good market to go after.

24:16
Hannah Dittman
Yeah, the better for you trend, I feel like is I've definitely noticed it creeping into baby to kids in new formats and products specifically geared towards them. And I think it makes a ton of sense. Like, if you're going to be worried about anyone, it's going to be your kids more than yourself even. Are there any patterns or similarities you've noticed and successful companies you've worked in, either an investment or logistics capacity.

24:41
Ryan Ball
Yeah. So I think a couple things. One, definitely a founder that is good at solving problems. I think someone that likes solving problems, a curious person, is probably going to be led into starting a company anyway. But if they're good at that and they get it done, things are going to go well because that's they put together the plan, you align your people to help you execute the plan and then your job is to make sure it stays on track and the problems are the things that get it off track. Additionally, and this is kind of related to the pivoting thing, I think the good ones are the ones that don't go too fast. Obviously there is like an urgency.

25:16
Ryan Ball
You want to scale up your product and you want to get it in the market before a competitor beats you or anything like that. But like really takes the time to understand their market position. Goes through like the bullseye process of figuring out what works on your marketing, really listens to the customers so that when it is time to raise and time to grow, all that work, you're pulling back the slingshot, all that extra work to really understand and you will take off and grow that much faster if you really put that in and don't rush to market.

25:45
Hannah Dittman
Great points and well said and I think definitely important north stars to keep in the back of your mind that are easy to forget sometimes when you've got these like goalposts ahead of you that you're just tunnel vision and racing towards. But important to kind of remember to think through things from the different angles as you go. I'd love to pivot into a slack case study question. As you know startup CPG has the largest slack community in the industry with now over 35,000 members. I'd love to pull a question directly from our channel and have you answer it as a case study for any founder that might have a similar question. Today's what are some differences in fundraising by CPG subcategory? What should I expect to be category specific for myself?

26:24
Ryan Ball
I guess if breaking out between categories of different products, the thing that sticks out to me is ltv, you know, and were talking about parents and kids products. Like when I see a kid's brand, you know, the first question I have is like how long is this going to last? Are they going to age out of this? You know, like baby products, you spend a lot of time marketing to them. You know, make stuff for older kids too, like because you've already got the customers keep it going. So when I'm looking at, anytime I look at like a different segment, I am wondering like, is there a limitation on ltv? And I think if I see those limitations, it definitely increases the risk. So maybe that's one thing that they can look at is like how are you limiting yourself that you're maybe not.

27:07
Hannah Dittman
Aware of super tangible and a well spoken comment. I think definitely something to think about. And I would broaden what you said a little further and just say, I think all metrics are really category specific. Like margin targets are going to be different depending on the category that you're playing in. Like knowing your benchmarks for what makes sense for your category and what's a strong performance versus not is really important. And then I would also say exit potential sometimes is also something that might vary by category or at least the watermark of scale that you would need to reach for an exit. So I think the business fundamentals journey is very different by category, but I think the pillars of what is being analyzed or the specific buckets that are being looked at are similar.

27:53
Hannah Dittman
It's just how high that water goes up into each bucket is going to be different depending on your category. And then the only other thing I might add is different investment firms might have different theses or focuses on different categories at different times. Some are very sector agnostic, they'll look at anything and some have power lanes that they really like to focus on. So I think also knowing the type of investor that you're speaking with, everyone is so different, every vehicle is very different. And knowing that you're a strong fit for them. Maybe it's not being analyzed necessarily, but I think that's an important portion of the fundraising process that can also be really helpful too.

28:29
Ryan Ball
For sure. Better said than I said.

28:32
Hannah Dittman
Not at all. Not at all. It was easy. You know, you had to go first. I got to piggyback off of you. Well, Ryan, thank you so much for chatting with us today. I'd love to take a second to make sure that we give an opportunity for any founders or other industry members that might want to get in touch with you, follow up on the conversation or have any follow up questions. What's the best way for them to get in touch? And second part of my question, do you have any advice for any interested in either joining, working alongside you or investing in general?

29:01
Ryan Ball
Yeah. So to get in touch with us, it's easy. Experianventures.com There's a contact page that has everything you need. Yeah. Anyone wanting to work with us or maybe wanting to get into investing, frankly, you know, reach out the same way. The whole thesis for starting this fund was there were a lot of people that wanted to invest. They just couldn't write the big checks, you know, so it's like, okay, we're, I'm listening to the market. They want to invest in something they can't. Let's create the system for them to do that. And that's why the format was born. I fully expect it to continue to evolve. But yeah, I guess if they're curious about that, you know, we can have a conversation about joining the listserv as well, if that's something they're into. And then you can always reach out to me on LinkedIn.

29:43
Ryan Ball
I'm pretty accessible. As long as you're not pitching me something too hard.

29:48
Hannah Dittman
No hard LinkedIn. Cold pitches. But definitely reach out to Ryan. And thank you so much.

29:53
Ryan Ball
Thank you.

29:55
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, 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.