The Spool: May 2023 - 🧵 Meet the CEO of Hearth Display

We have a great edition of The Spool in store for you this month - it's a 3-minute read. But in case you only get this far we wanted to share the fantastic news–we’re leaving transaction fees behind! Head to the app to check it out for yourself 💸

In May’s edition:

• Cashmere Fund Q1 2023 update from the Investment Team 
• Meet Mei Lin Ng, co-founder & CEO of our newest port co, Hearth Display 
• Sweater in the Wild, aka exciting upcoming events 
• What’s a flywheel again?

So let's dive in! 

Quarterly Update 

The Investment team has been hard at work over the past year, reviewing over 2,300 startups, completing 850 first calls, and running a full diligence process at 55 companies. To read a more in-depth analysis on the portfolio, its performance highlights and the environment we find ourselves in, click here to find the Cashmere Fund Q1 2023 Update.  

Port Co’s in the Wild

News

• Hearth Display’s waitlist opens next Tuesday, 5/9. Their first month's batch of orders sold out in less than three hours and the entire first production run was gone in 2 weeks. Mother’s Day is coming up– are you on the waitlist yet? 

• CONGRATS to Sweat Pals and Grapefruit Health for winning our first Barnburner pitch competition! 👏 Watch the founders’ rousing pitches and delight in a spectacular documentary viewing experience fit for Netflix. Wondering when the next Barnburner is? Head to our Events section below for an exciting update. 

• SweatPals is hosting the fitness event of the season this Thursday, 5/4, at GHOST in NYC. Reserve your pre-launch celebration ticket here. 

• Aakash Shah, Wyndly’s Founder, CEO and UVA Alumnus sat down for an interview in UVAToday. Learn how a former marching band member ended up leading the charge revolutionizing accessible allergy care. 🥁 

Looking to make a career move? Our Port Co's are hiring!

Interested in how Startup equity actually works? Click here.  

• Controller at Frances Valentine.
• Growth Marketing Manager at Hearth Display. 
• Interior Designer - Contract (Remote) at Havenly.

While many of us were working on sourdough starters and buying Pelotons during the early days of Covid-19, Mei Lin Ng, Co-Founder and CEO of Hearth Display, was discovering her big idea. Around 32% of Millennials and Gen Z moved home to quarantine during the pandemic, looking for outdoor space and human connection. Mei Lin was one of them, along with three of her siblings. According to Mei Lin, “that brought to top of mind the craziness of running a family and the logistics of having multiple people’s schedules and needs happening all in the same household.” 

With over 10 years of experience in growth, product, and operations roles at multiple startups, Mei Lin got to work looking for a solution to keep her family organized and connected in one central location. The result was Hearth Display, a 27-inch digital touchscreen board, taskmaster, and whiteboard designed to replace the traditional family bulletin board.  

We’re thrilled to add Hearth Display to our portfolio and have Mei Lin Ng and her Co-Founders Susie Harrison and Nathalie Stratton join the Sweater Founder ecosystem. 

Every month we feature a Cashmere Fund Port Co Founder or Sweater Member. Would you like to be featured next month? Click here to introduce yourself. 🤝  

Events

EarlyBird Webinar: Investing in Private Markets 

When: Today, May 2nd, 12:30-1:00 pm EST.

What: EarlyBird’s CEO and Co-founder, Jordan Wexler, hosts Sweater’s COO, Emma Clark. Click here to register. 

Sweater Office Hours

When: May 11, 2023 at 11:00 AM MT

Meet our Member Experience team for an in-depth discussion around Sweater and get all your questions answered. We're here to help make venture investing as easy as possible.

Sweater, On-Demand

Get your Sweater fix on-demand. To view our entire library of on-demand content, click here. 

The Takeaway

Bandwidth, synergy, circle back, pivot -- these are just a few of the words and concepts we collectively love to hate. One that also gets thrown around in business is the so-called flywheel effect.  

The concept describes how a small initial effort, repeated over time, can build momentum and generate significant results in the long run through a positive feedback loop. 

Sweater’s flywheel has a few moving parts, but at the center of it is you. Our Members and Founders keep the flywheel turning. 

You invest and refer family and friends, growing the community. We invest the capital into great portfolio companies, fueling their growth. Portfolio companies generate investment returns as they are acquired or go public. Finally, you choose what to do with your investment proceeds, either reinvesting investment proceeds or taking cash distributions. 

But that's just the framework. 

The wheel turns and builds momentum because you, our Members, influence portfolio company outcomes by purchasing, promoting, and championing our Founders and their startups. 

The supportive ecosystem you build from engaging in it attracts more Founders and Members, creating the positive feedback loop we call The Sweater Community Flywheel. 

It’s kind of like knitting a sweater - it starts with just a few stitches, but if you keep at it, you'll end up with something warm and cozy! And yes, that is the best corny flywheel knitting pun we came up with.

So while we can certainly leave bandwidth and synergy out of our lexicon, I hope we can all agree there is a place for flywheel effect in our hearts and boardrooms. 

Want to be an integral part of The Sweater Community Flywheel’s success? Join thousands of other Sweater Members and make your first investment by clicking here on mobile.

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