Life Update: I’m starting my second company.
Our mission: Eliminate the single serve plastic water bottle by using technology and media to create a movement that changes consumer behavior.
I thought you were CEO at MakeSpace?
Some of you may not have even realized I’ve left MakeSpace since I’ve been pretty quiet about it and have been off the radar for the past 3-4 months.
Building MakeSpace was one of the biggest accomplishments of my life. In just 5 years, we created the leading storage brand in the category, grew the company to tens of millions annualized run rate, almost 300 employees, opened 4 markets, launched a consumer app that feels like dropbox and self-storage had a baby with complete photo inventory of items, and have helped tens of thousands of customers through normally very stressful periods in their life. Most importantly, we grew a family. The MakeSpace mafia are the best people I’ve ever worked with and that talent has now started to spread out into other organizations. I couldn’t be more grateful to anyone who spent even a day working for our company.
So why then would you leave?
I always knew MakeSpace was not the end for me. As a kid who grew up in NJ, I once took an elementary school class field trip to Thomas Edison’s laboratory. Since then, I always knew I would want to create more than one invention. I worked through a transition with the MakeSpace board of directors that ensured the company I founded would be in great hands. I’m grateful to my partner, Rahul Gandhi, who was employee #2 and a co-founder, who has stepped up and taken the wheel as CEO. Rahul is a tireless fighter and has the fire in his belly to take MakeSpace to another level.
I’m thankful to all of our major investors — 8VC, Harmony, Primary, Summit Action, Lowercase, Collaborative Fund, OATV — and a host of other funds angels that are frankly too many to list. I feel obliged to specifically thank the entire team at Upfront Ventures, from partners to admins, who made me an EIR when I had no more than an idea on a napkin and the name “MakeSpace,” but more importantly who welcomed me in as family when I moved to Los Angeles.
So what’s next?
I’m starting my next company in Los Angeles in the health and wellness space.
I’ve always cared about my personal health and wellness. It’s what I live every day because we only get one body. Over the past several months, I’ve been thinking hard about how I merge what I love: technology, the environment, sustainability, wellness, and making people’s lives better. I’ve fallen in love with a major problem that I aim to fix.
I like solving big problems - the self-storage business was $34bn in the United States. But Americans spend $100bn on single serve plastic bottles. By 2020, the market will be $280bn globally. That’s so much waste going into our oceans and landfills. We’re going to stop that together by creating a movement.
Our mission: Eliminate the single serve plastic water bottle by using technology and media to create a movement that changes consumer behavior.
If this problem resonates with you or you want to be involved please let me know how you can help.
Watch this if you’d like to learn more about the story of bottled water.
To keep updated on our progress, please follow my instagram @samuelianrosen, where I’ll be announcing the name of the company, early team members, and behind the scenes look at building a movement from the ground up and behind the scenes looks at our technology. And why Instagram? Well, what Twitter did for Charity Water is what Instagram will do for [redacted 💧].
Be well.
SIR
