Founder Friday: Lillian Cartwright & John Cline, Co-Founders of ShelfLife
Founder Friday: Lillian Cartwright & John Cline, Co-Founders of ShelfLife
Issue #2
Founder Friday is a new content series from SuperAngel.Fund highlighting companies in our portfolio and the inspiring founders behind them.
In our second edition, we are featuring Lillian Cartwright (CEO) and John Cline (CTO), Co-Founders of ShelfLife, a B2B marketplace that makes it easy for emerging food & beverage brands to discover new suppliers, manage existing supplier relationships, and purchase raw materials.
Born out of the frustration that sourcing raw material ingredients for food and beverage brands is still very much stuck in the past, ShelfLife makes it easy for these brands to discover new suppliers, collect samples and quotes, manage existing suppliers, and purchase all in one. The platform includes a comprehensive directory of more than 10,000 individual ingredients from over a hundred leading suppliers and acts as a marketplace for the items brands actually need. Back in June, TechCrunch did a great job covering the company’s vision, strategy and the details behind their $3m seed round.
Lillian and John are both MBAs (holding degrees from Harvard Business School and ASU’s Carey School of Business, respectively) and have experience cutting their teeth at companies such as Blue Apron, Google, Morgan Stanley, and Bessemer Venture Partners, before teaming up to launch ShelfLife.
While thousands of companies are participating in the gold rush to launch new food and beverage brands, Lillian and John are offering them the picks-and-shovels: a B2B marketplace for wholesale ingredients, where innovators and makers discover the resources needed to bring products to market.
Describe your company in 5 words or less.
Lillian: The B2B marketplace for ingredients.
John: Ingredients marketplace for food/bev CPG.
What was your primary motivation for starting your business?
Lillian: After struggling to discover and work with ingredients suppliers for my own beverage brand, I founded ShelfLife to democratize access to information and bring transparency to a relationship-driven industry. Thousands of food and beverage manufacturers resort to time-intensive methods to source and purchase the raw materials needed to bring a product to market.
John: I was excited about the opportunity to create something from scratch and put into practice the ideas I’ve had around the best ways to build teams and companies for the past several years. The food space is also a lot of fun and being able to help bring new products to life is really exciting.
What piece of advice would you give an entrepreneur starting a business today?
Lillian: Have founders that you look up to on speed dial. There is so much “learning by doing” as an entrepreneur. Everyone’s path is unique. You will have to make tough calls and decisions with limited information and misaligned incentives. It’s been important for me to have a network of mentors to call on for the tough questions.
John: There’s always a huge list of things that need to be done and it can be easy to get overwhelmed. Trying to focus on the one most important thing, finishing it, and moving onto the next can be really helpful in combatting those feelings, as well as helping you feel like you’re making progress.
What do you love to do in your free time?
Lillian: My experiences in the outdoors encouraged me to launch my own company. I love going on long hikes in new places and trying my hand at different outdoor activities, from skiing to rock climbing.
John: Lately I’ve been a homebody, so catching up on TV and video games. Generally though, I like going to art museums (one of the best things about living in NYC) and checking out new bakeries and restaurants (the other best thing about living in NYC).
What is the most interesting place you’ve visited recently and why?
Lillian: It’s been difficult to travel over the past few years. My favorite trip would have to be the 8 hour drive from Denver, Colorado to Sandy, Utah. I drove for 6 hours through Wyoming and almost cried at the sunset over miles and miles of open land. It makes the challenges your facing feel small and the opportunities feel endless.
John: Last fall I went to the New York Public Library main building for the first time, for an exhibit featuring a lot of random things from their collection, like the original Winnie the Pooh plush toys, which was pretty interesting.
What is your favorite app or tool in your work life and in your personal life?
Lillian: In my work life, I’d have to give a shout out to Pry Financial at the moment. They’re building a great financial tool to help with our operating models and scenario planning. In my personal life, I’m a big Peloton fan. I finish every workout in a better mood than I started.
John: For work life, we recently started using Retool and it’s a super handy and quick way to create different views or administrative interfaces for your data. For my personal life…maybe CityMapper? I think it’s the best transit app by far and I have been using it for years.
What do you believe is the most important skill or attribute of a successful founder?
Lillian: I underestimated the importance of sales to a founder. In every meeting with an investor, you are selling yourself and the opportunity. When speaking with a client, you are selling a product that may or may not exist. I believe exceptional founders are brilliant salespeople.
John: Being able to get yourself unstuck. You often don’t have someone you can turn to for an answer, so knowing how to find it on your own, so you can keep moving forward, is probably the most important thing.
SuperAngel.Fund is an early stage fund that invests in Consumer, PropTech & Future of Work. The fund is led by Ben Zises who was the first investor and founding advisor to quip, Caraway & Arber. You can learn more and apply at SuperAngel.Fund.
