What Led Larry Cheng To Invest Early in Chewy, Chamberlain Coffee & US Mobile

Larry Cheng is the Managing Partner at Volition Capital, a $1.7B growth equity firm behind breakout brands like Chewy, Chamberlain Coffee, BURST, and Grove Collaborative. Volition’s unique approach? No early VC checks. No burn-at-all-costs playbooks. Just capital-efficient businesses with traction—and a partner who’s okay being the first check in.In this episode, Larry breaks down:How Chewy went from a “low-margin pet food startup” to the largest e-commerce acquisition in historyWhy Volition bets on unsexy markets and skips the Valley hypeHow Chamberlain Coffee learned the hard way that virality cuts both waysWhy most VCs misunderstand capital efficiency—and how it actually creates alphaWhat makes a founder irresistible without raising a single VC dollarIf you’re building or backing brands in today’s cautious market—this is a masterclass in discipline, scaling smart, and going big without losing your company.Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:10 Why Larry Left Traditional VC to Start Volition 03:25 The Two Types of Founders Who Bootstrap to $5M+ 06:20 How Volition Approaches Valuations 07:55 Why They Backed Chewy When No One Else Would 10:45 Investing in Physical Products vs. SaaS 12:30 The Truth About Virality and Bad Product Experience 14:10 How They Evaluate Customer Acquisition Channels 16:30 Defining Capital Efficiency (Pre and Post Investment) 19:00 Why Most of Their Portfolio Never Raises a Series B 22:00 What Changed Post-ZIRP: Founder Power vs. Investor Power 24:45 The Secret Sauce to Surviving the Hype Cycles 26:30 The “Unsexy Markets” That Became Home Runs 29:45 Why AI Might Be SaaS 10 Years Ago—But Riskier 33:00 Lessons From Grove Collaborative’s Public Struggles 36:50 Chewy’s Secret Weapon: Negative Working Capital 38:40 Existing vs. New Market Creation (And Why Larry Prefers Existing) 41:10 Knowing When to Exit—and What That Conversation Looks Like 44:10 Fund Horizon, Exit Timing, and Founder Alignment 45:40 Larry’s Book Picks: The Bible and 5 Types of Wealth 46:30 The Biggest Consumer Red Flag Today: “Made in China” 48:40 Favorite Innovation: Teslas Driving His In-Laws Around 49:50 The Biggest Venture Lesson: Power Law Is Real 51:20 Why Volition Intentionally Concentrates Their Bets 52:10 Pattern Matching: Useful Signal or Dangerous Bias? 53:25 The Biggest Myth About VCs (Hint: They’re Not All Sharks)—📬 Subscribe to The Consumer VC newsletter for weekly insights: 👉 https://www.theconsumervc.com/🎧 Listen on: Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/4Hjm74Z... Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast...Follow Mike Gelb: Twitter / IG / TikTok → @mikegelb / @consumervc

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