Wharton Alumnae Founders & Funders Wharton Alumnae

This podcast is a recording of a panel discussion of the business of building a brand and our first event in New York.

Thanks to 3L Capital for hosting! On the panel is Erum Hasnain, partner at Idea Farm Ventures, Melissa Mash, founder & CEO of Dagne Dover, and Dorie Smith, co founder of Of Mercer.

We discuss their customer, what their brands stand for, and how they listen to and implement customer feedback. It was interesting to hear the brands origin stories—from trunk shows at Wharton to getting connected to Warby Parker's Chinese sourcer.

This podcast is a recording of a fireside chat with Phin Barnes, partner at First Round Capital. In this podcast:

-Phin explains why First Round focuses on seed investments, what they look for, and how they structure their deals.
-He also explains the concept of “diversity debt” and why it’s important to focus on building a diverse team from the beginning, even if it takes longer.

First round was founded by Wharton alum Josh Kopelman and has a female investing partner. Lots of great insights from Phin and stay till the end for the answer to the audience question about why we should invest in women.

Bjorn Oste the co-founder of Oatly, the popular brand of oat milk, discusses his 25 year "overnight success."

The first patent related to oatmilk was filed in 1994. Bjorn and his brother cataloged the genome of 2800 varieties of oats in Sweden. They shared their creation with the head of the Swedish dairy association—who spit it out. The brothers had no choice but to commercialize it themselves.

Bjorn discusses the unique health benefits of oats and their importance as a global food source. It's great to be reminded of all the work and years of science that goes into your favorite coffee condiment.