Interview, Fireside Chat
Investing with Forerunner’s Eurie Kim
- Consumer sector evolution is projected to shift from product and community toward experience and services, with opportunities extending into health and lifestyle sectors like the Aura Ring driven by millennial and Gen Z preferences.
- New brands are expected to prioritize integrating service and ongoing customer relationships to represent an experience, while facing increased operational burdens to meet consumers across diverse platforms including messaging and email beyond social media.
- Significant opportunities are anticipated from fundamental lifestyle shifts regarding health, wellness, aging parents, and obesity management.
- Private market valuations are expected to decline precipitously due to public market correlations, though a flight toward quality involving real business models, experienced teams, and vision is projected to sustain reasonable pricing for select deals.
- Founders are expected to raise less capital to minimize dilution, resulting in tighter operations, more effective capital use, and increased selectivity regarding cap tables in favor of partners offering support during difficult environments over those providing highest valuations.
- Fundraising is anticipated to become more challenging than previous periods, requiring founders to possess genuine endurance for potential hardships, with the expectation that down markets will recur within a founder's lifetime.
- Commitment from entrepreneurs over ten-year horizons is uncertain, with many potentially exiting ventures if they encounter significant difficulties or fail to endure the associated pain.
- Mainstream adoption of the metaverse and the specific experiences driving it remain uncertain, with definitive answers expected to emerge over the next decade.
- Female investors are expected to offer distinct advantages in communication and mediation, potentially leading to earlier issue detection within portfolio companies and more effective support.
- Founders are encouraged to maintain long-term gratitude toward firms that provided support for durations exceeding six or twelve months during market downturns.