Someone in Gramercy Park named their dog EBITDOG
Someone in Gramercy Park named their dog EBITDOG
Free letter today.
Hello everyone. Hope you had a nice weekend. Here is me on the beach yesterday with my friend’s dog:
Two things we talk about a lot in Feed Me: money and access.
Earlier this summer, Titan, a wealth management app backed by Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst, reached out to me to see if there was a way to work together. After running this survey about my readers, I learned that the intersection of the Venn diagram between Feed Me’s audience and Titan’s target audience was impressive.
I’ve spent the last few weeks hanging out with the Titan team in their New York office while they updated and rebranded their platform. As of last week, Titan has launched their membership perks and services designed specifically for high earning, successful professionals navigating newfound financial independence. Think sophisticated wealth management, access to New York’s best restaurants, and comprehensive wealth tracking tools - like Amex but for wealth management.
What I really appreciated about the co-CEOs that I spent time with, Joe Percoco and Clayton Gardner, was that they didn’t say the white-glove wealth management services at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanely were broken – instead they believed the industry’s legacy banks are innovating too slowly to service the next generation of high net worth investors.
This week, Clayton Gardner will be hosting a Guest Lecture, and because this letter is sponsored by Titan, we’re opening up questions to all Feed Me readers – not just paid ones. Some ideas for questions before you hop into the chat:
You went to Wharton, incubated Titan in Y Combinator, and now run a 50+ employee fintech company. What has been the biggest hurdle that you’ve gotten over?
What investments do Titan members have access to?
Why would someone consider wealth management vs. investing on their own and what's the difference?
How did you decide to build out Titan’s new membership perks, like concierge reservation services and box seats at MSG? And while we’re on it… who’s your team?
The Feed Me chat is now open, ask him anything!
And now for some news…
Violet Grey’s founder bought her business back from Farfetch.
A few weeks ago, Cassandra Grey DM’d me on Instagram with a Google Form from the “office of Cassandra Grey.” Although I was curious about what she was working on, I filled out the form and decided to be patient. I got really curious about Cassandra after I heard her podcast episode with Pia Baroncini last fall. I was struck by her clearheaded approach to relationships and her perspective on building a business as an artist. So, when I saw her message, I was glad she was back in the lab.
My experience with Violet Grey is limited but it was the only place that sold my beloved Fara Homidi lip thing for a while (I live in the shade Nude 1). I didn’t think about the retailer all that much until I got that DM this summer.
When I read about the layoffs at Goop and the brand’s refocus on beauty, I was reminded of Violet Grey’s authority in the space. Then, Net-a-Porter made that announcement last week about becoming an affiliate editorial site, which got me thinking about how luxurious Violet Grey’s blog The Violet Files always looked. This morning, we found out that Cassandra Grey, Violet Grey’s founder, bought back the LA-based beauty retailer in partnership with private equity investor Sherif Gurgis.
What I thought was particularly exciting about the announcement was that the retailer is also launching a brand development arm called Violet Lab, “which Grey will lead as chairman and artistic director. It is meant to create a space to allow Violet Grey to identify and grow nascent beauty brands.” Guessing we’re about to see a lot more from small luxury brands like Margin, Regime des Fleurs, and Eighth Day.
There are a lot of shifts happening in the beauty/editorial space right now. I think shoppers love Sephora, but I have heard more than one beauty/skincare founder say that it’s a death wish for small brands to enter retail there. Maybe smaller, more curated retailers will become the north star for beauty startups.
If we had a water cooler, I’d talk to you about:
It’s pretty cool that the Fishwife team made a cookbook. I’ve been thinking a lot about how they have used the same illustrator, Danny Miller, for the majority of their projects. It creates this super cohesive, friendly brand universe. Chipotle did this well, although they used a few different artists. At the Fishwife pop-ups later this month in New York, Danny is selling his illustrations.
- interviewed Chappell Roan for The Face! Really perfect pairing: two hyper-online people who are fixated on pop culture. Some standout moments:
Chappell had to get a new therapist after realizing hers wasn’t equipped to deal with her rapid rise to fame
She also doesn’t read her DMs because they make her cry
I keep trying to imagine how the barista handled serving Phoebe Bridgers, Lorde, and Chappell coffee at the same time
Data visualization writer
polled rich New Yorkers about what they name their dogs. Last year, top names included Luna, Max, and Buddy (sleeper hit). There is also a dog in Gramercy named EBITDOG which is just lovely.
Bethenny Frankel is selling her Bridgehampton house for $6mm. She bought the house for $2mm in 2013 and later bought the adjacent property, which included a small home, for $650k. Frankel is really good at making money.
Three friends told me that this new restaurant from the team behind Catch is “giving Hillstone".”
Another excellent interview on today:
The remodeled Le Pain Quotidien on West Broadway looks a lot like Panera (too much upholstery in my opinion).
You no longer have to rent a ZipCar to shop at ’s store upstate…but you still should.
I just spent five minutes watching videos of the Autocado, an avocado peeling machine that Chipotle developed with Vebu Labs. This morning, Bloomberg reported that Chipotleis piloting machines in restaurants for the first time after they passed tests in a lab. “For now, two California locations are each getting a robot, and the company will see how workers and guests respond before they’re installed elsewhere.”
WSJ spoke to a bunch of rich powerful men about how to get dressed. Bottom line: go hard on the watch, no logos, and learn to overdress.
See you tomorrow.
The survey of dog breeds and dog names makes me think that wealth and being a savvy pet owner are inversely related!
An old client of mine in Switzerland called Alpian sounds a lot like this. Curious to see how people enjoy a digital-first wealth mgt experience in the US!
Or if it’s simply too unlike what people expect from wealth management (e.g. in-person).