Erik is joined on this episode by Ryan Caldbeck (@ryan_caldbeck), co-founder and CEO of CircleUp.

Ryan starts out by explaining how he got started in CPG and the mission of CircleUp. He talks about why some VCs don't realize that the market is worth paying attention to and some of their biases when evaluating CPG opportunities.

He explains the data-driven approach that CircleUp uses to predict which companies will be most valuable and explains why a fund needs to have CPG as its only focus to succeed.

Ryan also opens up about his personal experience as a founder dealing with mental health challenges and talks about why it’s so difficult for founders, employees and investors in the startup ecosystem to be vulnerable about what they're facing. He discusses what he thinks needs to happen for mental health to be addressed properly by the Valley.

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Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.