Solo Episode: My "Elephants in the Wild" Essay Deep Dive

This week we chat with Lisa Mayer! Lisa Mayer is the co-founder & CEO of Boss Beauties, a next gen tech company backed by Serena Ventures, the $100M+ venture fund founded by world class athlete Serena Williams. Boss Beauties inspires & elevates the next generation of women & girls to be everything they want to be through technology, content, and education.Boss Beauties was first born in emerging tech and they have had massive traction in the web3 space, launching multiple collections of digital collectibles that consumers have spent over $50M collecting and trading since 2021. They also partnered with Mattel & Barbie launching the first collection of digital collectibles celebrating the 250 careers Barbie has had since its inception. Lisa’s work has impacted thousands of high school and college-aged girls all over the world spanning across 15 countries and over 400 educational institutions. In addition to Barbie, Lisa has grown the brand to highlight & celebrate women through live events and global collaborations with partners that include Rolling Stone, Marvel, and the New York Stock Exchange and her work has been featured by Forbes, Fortune, and Apple.Follow us!Lisa Mayer: @lisacmayerBoss Beauties: @BossBeautiesErica Wenger: @erica_wengerDear Twentysomething: @deartwentysomething

This week we chat with Mac Reddin! Mac Reddin is the Founder and CEO of Commsor. At Commsor he's focused on building tools to enable companies to embrace Go-to-Network, a more sustainable way to grow compared to traditional direct Go to Market motions.Prior to Commsor he bootstrapped and exited various businesses across gaming, fashion, and software.Follow us!Mac Reddin: TheTeaGunsCommsor: @CommsorErica Wenger: @erica_wengerDear Twentysomething: @deartwentysomething

This week we chat with Ben Lang! Ben has spent his life hopping between New York, Tel Aviv, and San Francisco. He is a builder, former founder, and community guy, always in multiple places at one time.He was an early member of the Notion team, where he led community for nearly 5 years. He actively makes angel investments and advises a few select startups.He’s helping world-class talent discover what’s next through next play.Follow us!Ben Lang: @benlnnext play: @nextplaysoErica Wenger: @erica_wengerDear Twentysomething: @deartwentysomething

This week we chat with Nik Sharma! Nik is the CEO of Sharma Brands, a strategic initiatives firm working with a wide range of brands to help grow and scale revenue across digital platforms.Nik is one of AdWeek’s Young & Influential, Forbes 30 under 30, Business Insider's up and coming Investors to Watch, and an investor and advisor to some of the fastest-growing brands in commerce.Follow us!Nik Sharma: @mrsharmaSharma Brands: @sharmabrandsErica Wenger: @erica_wengerDear Twentysomething: @deartwentysomething

This week we chat with Sieva Kozinsky! Sieva is a founder of Enduring Ventures, a long-term holding company that buys wonderful businesses and holds them forever. Sieva is a lifelong entrepreneur who started Enduring Ventures with Xavier Helgesen, taking inspiration from Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway model.Together with investors, they own stakes in over 20 companies, including Somewhere.com, Scribe Media, and Abstract.  Sieva is a founder of Enduring Ventures, a long-term holding company that buys wonderful businesses and holds them forever. Sieva is a lifelong entrepreneur who started Enduring Ventures with Xavier Helgesen, taking inspiration from Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway model.Together with investors, they own stakes in over 20 companies, including Somewhere.com, Scribe Media, and Abstract. Follow us!Sieva Kozinsky: @sievakozinskyEnduring Ventures: @enduring.venturesErica Wenger: @erica_wengerDear Twentysomething: @deartwentysomething

This week we chat with Liz Wessel!Liz Wessel is a Partner at First Round Capital, a pre-seed and seed venture fund, based in San Francisco. Prior to joining First Round, she was a Visiting Group Partner at Y Combinator, where she worked directly with over 110 early-stage startups. Liz has also been investing as an angel since 2016, backing over 60 startups, including Ramp, ScaleAI, Ro, Artera (fka WELL Health), FreeWill, Snackpass and others.Before becoming a full-time investor, Liz was the co-founder and CEO of WayUp, an early-career recruitment platform used by over 7 million candidates and thousands of companies. She launched WayUp in 2014 and ran it for seven years — during which time she raised over $40 million in venture and was with the company as CEO through its M&A exit in 2021.Prior to WayUp, Liz worked at Google as a product marketing manager. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor’s in Political Science, Mathematics and Japanese. Follow us!Liz Wessel: @lizwesselFirst Round Capital: @firstroundErica Wenger: @erica_wengerDear Twentysomething: @deartwentysomething

This week we chat with Casey Lewis! Casey is a youth trends expert and brand consultant. Formerly an editor at Teen Vogue, MTV, and New York Magazine.She now writes After School, a trends newsletter read by 45,000+ people, and helps companies reach Gen Z.Follow us!Casey Lewis: @caseymlewisErica Wenger: @erica_wengerDear Twentysomething: @deartwentysomething

This week our host, Erica Wenger, chats about her most recent essay: Elephants in the Wild!On this episode Erica dives into her newest essay which draws a parallel between the Ironman Triathlon and successful startups, focusing on the qualities that create strong, long-lasting brands.Using the Ironman community as an example, Erica highlights how Elephants—those built on social attraction, mission-driven growth, and public transparency—foster deep loyalty through identity, community, and shared culture.Read the essay here: Elephants in the WildFollow Us!Erica Wenger: @erica_wengerDear Twentysomething: @deartwentysomething

This week we chat with Jason Yeh!Jason Yeh is the Founder of Adamant, a fundraising strategy and investor relations firm dedicated to making capital raising less painful for founders and fund managers around the world.As a formal and informal advisor to startups, he’s helped companies raise over $300MM in capital - first as an investor at Greycroft Partners and afterwards as a founder where he led multiple fundraises. His previous company Tape sold to Hustle in 2020.Jason is a graduate of the University of Virginia and Harvard Business School.Follow Us!Jason Yeh: @jayyehAdamant: @adamantfoundersErica Wenger: @erica_wengerDear Twentysomething: @deartwentysomething

This week we chat with April Underwood!April Underwood is co-founder and Managing Director of Adverb Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in early-stage technology startups launched in 2023. In addition, April is a member of the boards of directors for Zillow Group and Eventbrite, and a co-founder of the #ANGELS angel investing collective through which she backed over 50 companies as an angel investor. April brings 20 years of experience building software to her role as an investor. Until 2019, April was the first Chief Product Officer at Slack Technologies, Inc, where she led Product, Platform, Design, and Research as the company scaled 10X to IPO-ready in less than 4 years. Prior to joining Slack in 2015, April was director of product at Twitter from 2010 to 2015 from through its IPO.Previously, April has held product, partnerships, and engineering roles at Google, Travelocity, and Intel. April has also been a founder: in 2020, She founded Nearby, an e-commerce marketplace composed of local retailers backed by GV, Obvious Ventures, Redpoint, and many prominent operator angel investors, and her team was acquired by Twitter in 2021. April holds a B.B.A. in Management Information Systems and Business Honors from The University of Texas at Austin (2001), and an M.B.A. from The University of California at Berkeley (2007). Follow Us!April Underwood: @aunderAdverb Ventures: @adverbvcErica Wenger: @erica_wengerDear Twentysomething: @deartwentysomething