Ep. 177: Stuart Landesberg, Co-Founder & CEO of Grove Collaborative

Today's guest is Stuart Landesberg, Co-Founder and CEO of Grove Collaborative. Grove Collaborative is a certified B Corp and e-commerce company providing eco-friendly sustainable consumer products focusing on home cleaning, personal and sexual wellness, and baby and child care. The company offers over 150 sustainable brands whose products are non-toxic, effective, sustainable, and cruelty-free. Grove Collaborative was founded by three friends in San Francisco and sought to answer the question: what if it was easy to find healthier home essentials? Since then, Grove has become a billion-dollar company. In 2019 alone, the company saved over 1 million pounds of plastic and funded the planting of more than 100,000 trees. Before co-founding and serving as CEO of Grove, Stuart was an Investment Professional at Toro Investment Partners, an Analyst at TPG Growth, a Financial Analyst at Vincraft Group, and an Investment Banking Analyst at Lehman Brothers. Throughout his time in finance, he focused on global technology and retail investments. Stuart also holds a BA in economics from Amherst College. In this episode, Stuart and I have a lively discussion about Grove Collaborative, the company's business model, and its core customer base. Stuart explains why the consumer product market is broken, the definition of a "sustainable product", and how to balance government mandates in a voluntary market. We also dive into the role offsets play for Grove, how the company tracks and measures success, and the myth about plastic recycling. Stuart is a great guest with a wealth of knowledge. Enjoy the show! You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at [email protected], where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests. Episode recorded September 17th, 2021