MSIV Welcomes First Venture Partner
Q&A with new team member Jordan Kivelstadt
Tuesday, March 5, 2024 from Sonoma, CA
Today, we are very excited to announce that Jordan Kivelstadt, a seasoned entrepreneur, angel investor, and North Bay leader, is joining Marin Sonoma Impact Ventures as our first Venture Partner to support deal selection, portfolio companies, and community building.
Jordan was born into an entrepreneurial family and has been building his own companies since college. He pioneered wine-on-tap by co-founding Free Flow Wines, which changed the way Americans drink wine by the glass. He grew the company from his garage to over 100 employees before selling the company in 2016. He later started his own hospitality business - Trellis Management - and today leads hospitality efforts and serves as an active mentor, advisor, and board member to startup companies across sectors.
Jordan was a founding Limited Partner in MSIV Fund I and has leaned in heavily to support the MSIV movement from his perch as an investor over the past three years. He shares the MSIV team’s passion to reshape the North Bay’s economic future and is deeply engaged in our community, serving on the boards of the Sonoma County Economic Development Board, Sonoma Economic Collaborative, Sonoma Valley Vintners and Growers, and the Sonoma Valley Mentoring Alliance. He currently resides in Sonoma with his two children and wife.
MSIV Founder & Managing Partner Zachary Kushel sat down with Jordan to discuss his career in entrepreneurship and what he’s most excited about as he prepares to more deeply engage with the North Bay’s growing startup community.
Jordan moderating a discussion on “Innovation within Large Enterprises” at North Bay NEXT 2023 in Rohnert Park
ZK: Jordan, I’m absolutely thrilled that you’re coming aboard. What first attracted you to the mission of helping North Bay entrepreneurs thrive here in our community?
JK: My entrepreneurial journey dates to college when I co-founded an event production company my sophomore year – we started with our two little speakers on sticks and quickly grew to put on massive parties with six figure budgets at colleges all over New England. After taking a job in management consulting upon graduation, I knew I had caught the entrepreneurial bug and returned home to the Bay Area to start Free Flow Wines.
With Free Flow, we were tackling the crazy number of bottles that a restaurant, hotel, or casino would go through, and we set out to essentially put wine in a keg by pioneering the concept of wine-on-tap. Throughout that journey, it seemed we were figuring everything out from scratch, and I think back to how incredible a community-based network of advice, mentorship, talent, and capital would have been for us, and that perhaps our effort may have turned out even better. So when I heard about MSIV, and its mission to help local entrepreneurs, I knew I wanted to support it in any way I could.
Jordan and his Free Flow Wines co-founder in 2013 (courtesy SF Business Times)
ZK: You grew up in San Francisco and are now raising your family in Sonoma. What’s your assessment of the North Bay startup opportunity?
JK: I moved full-time to Sonoma in 2015 and found that being in a smaller community has a lot of benefits – my ability to make an impact here is far greater than it ever would be in San Francisco. I’ve gotten involved across the philanthropic, governmental, and private sectors and came to realize that, while Sonoma County has a lot of strengths, we also have a couple of glaring weaknesses. One of the biggest is that wine and tourism account for roughly 70% of our revenue, which is not sustainable if we want to have a healthy future.
I got involved with MSIV around the same time I joined the advisory board of the Sonoma County Economic Development Board (EDB), and I realized there’s a massive opportunity to better connect the local public and private sectors to drive economic growth. MSIV’s core mission is to help local leaders build the next great North Bay companies that will ultimately employ local citizens and help create a thriving and more diverse economy, and that is precisely the broader mission of the EDB.
I understand the priorities of government and also the speed at which government is oftentimes forced to move, so I’m excited for MSIV to help accelerate growth in a way that government is not equipped to do while ensuring we are all aligned in the same direction as an overall North Bay community.
Jordan helping host North Bay founders at the MSIV 2022 Fall Party held at Kivelstadt Cellars in Sonoma
ZK: What has surprised you the most about your engagement with the North Bay startup community?
JK: I underestimated the desire among local entrepreneurs to have a group where they can engage with one another, share common experiences, and ask questions. MSIV’s North Bay Founder Network really has filled a void for local founders and has done it quite well.
I’d also say that the quality of companies building across Sonoma + Marin is high, and their desire to stay here and build is tangible. I first engaged with MSIV because I wanted to believe the thesis that you can invest in our local startup community to boost the region and make money all at the same time. I’m now getting more involved because this thesis has now been validated – there are innovative companies led by incredible leaders here in our own backyard, and if we can better harness the financial and intellectual capital of this community to get behind them, there is no upper bound to how much brighter the North Bay’s economic future may be.
ZK: You’ve been engaged with the entrepreneurship center at Tufts, your alma mater, for many years. What have you learned working with companies across sectors and as an angel investor that you feel is applicable to the North Bay startup community?
Jordan, MSIV VP Community Elizabeth Murphy, and MSIV Founder Zachary Kushel at the MSIV 2022 Fall Party
JK: My approach has always been to work with and invest in great people with an average idea over average people with a great idea. The quality of the founding team is responsible for so much because it is their ingenuity, endurance, and grit that will ultimately lead to success. I see that with the MSIV portfolio company founders – these are people that are beyond mission-driven to succeed in their respective ventures.
It’s critical to never be a ‘me too’ when it comes to startup building and investing. With the frothiness right now we’re seeing with the AI boom, there are so many companies dressing themselves up as AI efforts that we all know are not. I’m much more focused on finding top-notch teams building in a specific sector that have a path to achieving real product-market fit.
ZK: How do you see MSIV evolving over the next few years?
JK: It’s important for the broader North Bay community to realize just how much activity is happening as part of this broader local startup movement. MSIV has made quite an impact in its brief history, but there are still many startups operating in the North Bay with their heads down and not plugged into MSIV’s broader community-building efforts, which is remarkable when you think about how much Sonoma + Marin operates with a ‘small town’ feel.
For our community to thrive, and for this region to reach its economic potential, we need to make sure local entrepreneurs are noticed and connected. That support can come from existing governmental and nonprofit efforts, or in the case of those entrepreneurs seeking to build scalable startups, MSIV. There is something about the culture of North Bay entrepreneurs that is different, in a very positive way, from those in Silicon Valley, and I’m so excited to lean in more closely in the years ahead to play my part in building the North Bay’s future.
