Ellie Wheeler is a Partner at Greycroft Partners where she focuses on investment opportunities in next-generation commerce, consumer mobile, and associated SaaS solutions. Ellie manages several investments for Greycroft, including BaubleBar, Flashpoint Intel, Eloquii, and Plain Vanilla Games (QuizUp). Prior to joining Greycroft, Ellie worked in a similar role evaluating investment opportunities at Lowercase Capital with Chris Sacca. Before working with Lowercase, Ellie worked at Cisco where she was involved in multiple acquisitions and investments, including PostPath, Jabber, Xobni, and Tandberg.
1.) How Ellie made her way into the wonderful world of tech and VC?
2.) What were Ellie's biggest takeaways from working with the legend that is Chris Sacca?
3.) As an investment focus of Ellie's, how does Ellie think the mobile commerce space has changed and how consumer behaviours are changing in the space?
4.) What are Ellie's views on push notifications? What are the Do's and Don'ts? What can be done to make push notifications more effective?
5.) Do wearables change the push notification space? What are Ellie's views on wearables with their investment in BaubleBar? Are consumers ready for them?
6.) Talking of wearables, how does Ellie respond to hardware investments? Typically a space VC shy away from? What are the problems for Ellie? What attracts her with hardware?
Ellie's Fave Book: The Power of One