Alex French (Bizzy Coffee) - The Cold Brew Competitive Landscape, Becoming #1 on Amazon, and Some of The Differences Raising from VCs and Family Offices

Our guest today is Alex French, founder and CEO of Bizzy Coffee, the #1 seller of cold brew coffee on Amazon. We discuss Alex's initial approach to entrepreneurship, how they've been able to maintain #1 Best Seller on Amazon, how he approached fundraising and was able to raise, and COVID's effects on Bizzy. Without further ado, here's Alex

A couple books that inspired Alex are The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris and How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

Here are some of the questions that I asked Alex -

1. What initially attracted you to entrepreneurship and your early entrepreneurial efforts?
2. What were some of your learnings when you were at General Mills?
3. Why did you decide to focus on Coffee?
4. What was the problem that you saw that you wanted to address or the particular insight?
5. It seems like you wanted to be an entrepreneur, but didn’t have or know what product to launch. There is no right or wrong way to approach entrepreneurship but I wanted to know if you have thoughts around how you thought about it?
6. How were you able to validate ideas?
7. How did you approach your supply chain? What was the hardest part?
8. How did you approach fundraising? DNVBs have been out of favor with investors, did you get that sense when you were fundraising?
9. You’ve raised both from VCs and Family Offices, what has been some of the differences when seeking investment from these two groups?
10. How were you able to grow to become #1 on Amazon?
11. What are some of the benefits to Amazon and some of the limitations?
12. In the beginning, how did you think about brand and your differentiation when you were evaluating the market?
13. How has COVID affected Bizzy?
14. How are you thinking about post-COVID and the changes in consumer behavior?
15. What is one book that inspired you professionally and one book that inspired you personally?
16. What’s one piece of advice that you have for founders?

You can also follow your host, Mike, on Twitter @mikegelb. You can also follow for episode announcements @consumervc.