Q&A with Lizzie Horvitz of Finch
Founder & CEO
Principal Series:
Finch decodes products’ environmental and social impacts and incentivizes consumers to make better purchasing decisions with curated content and a browser extension. With the data they collect on rating products and consumer insights, they sell that to brands as a data platform.
Our deck can be found here: https://docsend.com/view/tzdynw4knvxbeths
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What's your business model?
For B2C, we plan to take an affiliate fee when a consumer buys a product we've recommended. We'll split that with the end consumer so that they're monetarily incentivized to make better decisions. On b2b, more and more money is spent each year on consumer insights, along with lifecycle assessments and large sustainability consulting firms. We believe that we can be a data platform for companies who want to strengthen their sustainability strategy. We see this to be an $11b opportunity.
Who will use this product?
Our north star metric is monthly active users, so it's crucial that we understand who our audience is and how to reach them. We did several tests to discover our three archetypes: the new mom, who is concerned about what they're putting on their baby and also has no brand loyalty to baby products, the "minimalist", who isn't necessarily concerned with sustainability but wants to own less products, and the "sustainability newbie," who cares about climate change but doesn't have more than 7 minutes to research it online. We have had organic growth of 1,000 followers of our newsletter and have a go-to-market strategy that includes paid advertisements, PR, and affiliate partnerships with brands and influencers.
What are your competitive advantages?
Shockingly, there is no one in the space right now who is known as the guiding light for sustainability resources. We want to own that market. We have an advanced neural network and predictive machine learning model to scrape massive amounts of data and score them at scale, while also incorporating real reviews from consumers on the quality and function of the product. This allows us to never recommend a product that isn't enjoyable to use. Our market is the most penetrable because we're going after the large group of people who don't live and breathe sustainability every single day but want to make small differences as it integrates into their already existing habits.
Lizzie Horvitz of Finch
Lizzie has been passionate about sustainability since the age of 16 when she lived off the grid. It was there that, depending only on wind energy and rainwater, she saw the solution of climate change before fully understanding the problem. Before Finch, Lizzie worked in supply chain and sustainability at Unilever and then became Chief Operating Officer at Muuse, a startup that aims to mitigate single-use plastics in the to-go industry. She has a BA from Middlebury College and an MBA and Master of Environmental Management from Yale University.
Contact Lizzie: lizzie@choosefinch.com