Christian Talmage On Raising $56 Million For His Furniture Company And Now Building An End-to-End Service To Offer Businesses Circular Packaging Solutions

In the fast-paced world of entrepreneurship, few journeys are as inspiring as that of Christian Talmage, the founder of Oliver Space and Chief Product Officer of Dispatch Goods. From the rural woods of Maine to his rapid ascent in the startup ecosystem, Christian’s story is about the power of intuition and resilience.

Christian’s latest venture, Dispatch Goods, has attracted funding from top-tier investors like Climate Tech Circle, Congruent Ventures, Active Impact Investments, and Andreessen Horowitz.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Trusting your instincts and following your passions can lead to unexpected yet rewarding career paths.
• Entrepreneurship requires embracing uncertainty and taking calculated risks, much like the adrenaline rush of competitive sports.
• Listening to inspiring voices and learning from industry leaders can ignite entrepreneurial ambitions and reshape career goals.
• Resilience and adaptability are crucial in navigating challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic, which can create obstacles and opportunities.
• Building and scaling a business involves constant learning, perseverance, and the ability to pivot when faced with market shifts.
• Fundraising is a challenging process that requires a strong vision, persistence, and staying focused amidst rejection.
• Aligning impact with business value, especially in sectors like climate, can drive meaningful change while building successful ventures.

 

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About Christian Talmage:

Christian Talmage, based in San Francisco, CA, US, is currently a Chief Product Officer at Dispatch Goods. He brings experience from previous roles at Neptune and Oliver Space.

Christian holds a Stanford University. With a robust skill set that includes Virtual Reality, User Experience Design, Product Design, Entrepreneurship, User Interface Design, and more.

Connect with Christian Talmage:

• LinkedIn
• X
• Crunchbase
• RocketReach

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: alright Hello, everyone, and welcome to The Deal Maker Show. so Today, we um we have a really, really exciting guest. you know We’re going to be talking about following your instinct, unexpected events, you know how you do well by obviously you know aligning the impact also with business value. you know I think that really understanding the drive and the vision and being able to get those two is really incredible, especially in in the world today. um and And again, the building, the scaling, financing, i mean he’s done all types of good stuff. So without further ado, let’s welcome our guest today, Christian Talmash.

Christian Talmage: Hey Alejandro, it’s a pleasure to meet you.

Alejandro Cremades: So originally born in Long Island, but they fairly quick, you move to Maine. So give us a walk through memory lane. How was life growing up?

Christian Talmage: Sure, yeah, living up in Maine, you know, we lived in a pretty rural part of the the country ah back in the woods, very close to Sugarloaf Mountain ski resort that it’s really the only landmark up there. um And I’ve got to say, I mean, know I loved it. It’s a really special place, have a lot of near and dear friends, ah maybe not the most challenging school environment. um But, but yeah, a lot of wonderful things.

Alejandro Cremades: So tell us about your ski racing appetite, because I’m sure that that has shaped you quite a bit you know when it comes to really being an entrepreneur, getting out there, you know wanting to be number one, you know all that good stuff.

Christian Talmage: Yeah, definitely fosters an appetite for competition. That’s that’s for sure. And something I think there’s a a strong corollary between the the risk taking, ah the adrenaline rush of of skiing and putting yourself into these really difficult situations where ah there’s a high potential for injury and there’s a lot of things that can go wrong and you’re really trusting in your own own ability to see you through and I feel like building companies, starting companies, it’s a lot of that same leap. you know You really don’t know what the future holds and you’re taking an immense risk all under the premise that you’re going to figure this thing out and you’re going to pull it all together just in time and hopefully see a really exciting outcome. But um there’s a big uncertainty as you go.

Alejandro Cremades: So you went to ah to college, ah and obviously you had that day in law for math and science. So there was no other than some type of engineering, the degree. So walk us through what was the desire there.

Christian Talmage: Yeah, you know, there’s there’s a lot of career paths that I didn’t even realize ah were were options growing up. I felt like ah because I loved math and science so much and really excelled there, I had a deep interest in in art and design. I thought that meant that I was going to be an architect. I thought that was the only kind of viable career path. And so ah because I was so focused on skiing and the schools that had D1 ski programs I did not have architecture programs. I thought that the next best thing was like, okay, I’m going to study engineering. I’m going to study physics and studio art, and I’m going to leave with ah some some capable degrees and skill sets in those areas. And then I’ll go back and I’ll study architecture, and I’ll go on to you define my career with that.

Alejandro Cremades: So then in your case, you know you decided that the um being an architect or being in the architect world you know was the um the choice after getting your degree. I mean, out of all things, why did you choose you know that direction, that path?

Christian Talmage: Yeah, you know like i like I thought, it ah it combined a lot of the passions of that art and design combined with with technical capabilities and engineering. um And again, I think it spoke to just a ah lack of awareness of what all what the different you know career paths even looked like. um I do love spatial design. I do love ah thinking through structural systems. um But as I got into that space and I you know i really leapt into this this job with um You know, both eyes open, I joined early stages and just kind of through default ended up being promoted really quickly. Got firsthand experience leading, building a commercial, large scale commercial building and realized, wait a minute, this is not what it’s all cracked up to be. I think there’s there’s got to be other more interesting spaces.

Alejandro Cremades: And obviously there was a podcast there that they kind of like turned everything around for you.

Christian Talmage: but

Christian Talmage: That’s right. Yeah, while I was working and while I was busy, heads down, ah you know, drawing and and building construction details. um I was listening to a lot of different podcasts because it’s a great way to you know pass the time where you’re doing these kind of creative activities.

Christian Talmage: Uh, and I really fell in love with the entrepreneurial thought leaders podcast from Stanford. I was listening to folks like Drew Houston from Dropbox, uh, like Ben Horowitz from Andrewson Horowitz, uh, Larry and surrogate these people giving these really inspiring speeches. And it made me feel like, wait a minute. I love creative problem solving. I love technical problem solving. I really want to be building companies. I want to be an entrepreneur. This is, this is maybe what I’ve been looking for and it completely changed the course of my career rather than looking for grad schools and architecture.

Christian Talmage: I began looking at programs at Stanford. I ended up going there to study human-centered design, product design, and taking a lot of business classes along the way, so they just really stoked this entrepreneurial passion.

Alejandro Cremades: You know, it’s really interesting to that they you got the entrepreneurial passion and and and this this whole experience of Stanford It really got you more than anything into into joining the startup world. As a result of that, you started getting involved with the VR space with either ah investors you know on the investment side or with with River Studios or, for example, with Boom. But they ultimately, Boom became your segue into building Oliver Space. So walk us through the sequence of events that needed to happen for you to ultimately say, hey, you know what? I’m going to take ownership of my own destiny.

Christian Talmage: Yeah, it’s a great question. You know, I jumped into a couple startups immediately after school, got some firsthand exposure to what does it mean to build a company, all the good, bad and ugly involved. and it You know, it really takes a lot of will and there’s a lot of things you have to design on the fly. The analogy of putting together the airplane as it’s falling down couldn’t be more.

Christian Talmage: It couldn’t be more apt, um but it helped build confidence, I think, in in understanding what does it actually take to get a business off the ground. And I felt like after a certain period of time, why shouldn’t I just be doing this myself? I i feel like I know what it takes and ah you know have the skills to make this happen.

Alejandro Cremades: So tell us too about a following your instincts, because I know that you’re big into that, you know obviously many, many shifts and turns you know in your career in terms of spaces, industries, and and things. so So you always look at where’s the energy and passion. So walk us through that a little bit more.

Christian Talmage: Sure. I mean, you look at this career path, you see you know some very technical disciplines, some art disciplines, you see architecture, and then you see this trajectory of of different startups and and problem solving along the way. And I think it might feel a little circuitous. I don’t know that it’s necessarily like a clear linear trajectory.

Christian Talmage: um But the way I’ve made those decisions along the way has really been informed by intuition. It’s been formed by passionate and and focusing on the areas that I’m just finding the most energy. And I have to say, I feel like it’s served me really well over the years. It’s been a great way to make sure that I’m incredibly engaged in whatever I’m working on at the time.

Christian Talmage: And I know that whenever there’s a lot of energy derived from the activity, from the building, from learning, I tend to just do it and focus and obsess about it at a much higher degree. And then the rate of learning increases. And so I don’t know that you need to know what your five, 10, 15 year plan is to see really good outcomes along the way and have a great learning experience.

Alejandro Cremades: So then with this, you know essentially tell us you know what happened. you know how how do you How do you get into it with Oliver Space and and and and what was that journey ah to being like, you know this is this this looks like it’s going to be the business model for us.

Christian Talmage: Yeah, it’s ah it’s a cognitive leap for one. ah We jumped into the space, my co-founder and I, when there were already a couple of competitive products on the market, ah this is mostly in the category of rental furniture at the time. It was becoming this interesting space. We had seen folks like Rent-A-Center in the past have very high success with rental models, but what we said is like, wait a minute, this is an old, tired model that is a little predatory in nature, to be honest.

Christian Talmage: uh, with very high, uh, you know, very high rates. Um, can we modernize this? Can we make it a little bit more contemporary for today’s user? My co-founder and I, we both moved multiple times, uh, you know, every year, basically since we had left for college. And we said, wait a minute, your needs are constantly changing. Uh, the demands on your space are constantly changing. Maybe you’re adding, losing roommates, having children, modifying your home for all sorts of various reasons.

Christian Talmage: This model of buying furniture and keeping it for 10 years doesn’t quite make sense. And so the fundamentals felt really good. It felt like we were solving a problem that had a visceral need and it was really easy to look around to peers in every direction and see ah how this was applicable to them. And so we we set out with that problem. We had a couple of templates to work off of, but really the challenge at that point became how do we build something 5, 10, 15x better than what’s already out there?

Christian Talmage: And we focused on holistic design. We focused on incredible ah ease and convenience and user experience. And all of those things took investment. right All of those things were expensive. Fortunately, the margins and furniture are really high. So we’re able to take that, rather than offering sales, we’re able to take that return, put it directly into the activities that we were doing, ah but only to so much degree. So we really had to get scrupulous about how we manage our operations internally. And we helped add a ton of leverage and lower our OpEx by investing in technology that made it really easy to do all these activities.

Christian Talmage: And so that’s where I spent my the the vast majority of my time with the business. And we were able to see some really meaningful returns over a ah short period of time, four years, about 18 million ARR, things were growing fast.

Alejandro Cremades: So you guys also raised 56 million throughout the journey of the of the company. So what were the financing cycles like? How how was how was it like going through the motions?

Christian Talmage: Yeah, it’s it’s always hard. ah Anyone who tells you otherwise has either had a you know phenomenally lucky experience or ah doesn’t know what they’re talking about. um It never really gets easier. There’s always a lot of challenges with fundraising. Sometimes rounds come together, but um you know The stakes get higher, so you hit your metrics. Things are moving really well. You get really excited about the business, but the world around you, the expectations have all changed. And so every stage of the way, you’ve constantly got to prove yourself. You’ve constantly got to sell this vision, and you’re going to hear a lot of rejection. You’re going to hear a lot of no’s along the way. And one of the biggest risks that I see founders and entrepreneurs running into during that time is

Christian Talmage: Letting that become too discouraging, getting taking their eyes off the prize, losing sight of the you know intuition that they have about their customer and the problem that they’re solving, where the opportunity is, and immediately throwing that stuff out the window because some investor who’s looking at it at the for the first time says, I don’t think that’s going to work. Or or have you thought about this totally different aspect of your business?

Christian Talmage: And then before you know it, you’re changing gears, you’re changing product roadmap, you’re making a bunch of decisions based on ah really loose, informed data because you’ve heard a couple of people suggest it and you got to really stick to your guns, know what you’re selling, know your customer inside and out. And don’t let, for lack of a better word, don’t let the haters distract you from the end goal.

Alejandro Cremades: So in your case, you know in the end, um you know you guys, as as you were saying, you achieved the $18 million ARR, but there was a series of unexpected events you know that they hit you guys you know when COVID you know hit the fan. so So talk to us. What happened there?

Christian Talmage: Sure. Yeah, I mean, this comes back to the, it’s always difficult. we um We felt like we were in a very good position less than a year after our founding. We went out to raise our Series A again. We were already doing a million ARR, I believe within about eight, seven, eight months of launch. ah We had a super talented team. We had great customer reviews. A lot of things we’re all pointing towards. This is gonna be a monster round.

Christian Talmage: uh as we start to go out to market i remember distinctly i’d just gotten back i’d gotten married uh and we we didn’t go on ah we took a very like brief little couple day mini moon uh and then knew we got to come back and uh and focus on fundraising because we had such a great opportunity right then and there And we’re lining up meetings left and right pretty shortly thereafter, you know, this this growing rumors of ah something happening in China that felt very far away that seemed like it was problematic, but um

Christian Talmage: You know, not something that we would have to worry about here in the US very quickly became something we were worrying about in the US and it was scaling. We’re hearing a lot of reports about how devastating this was and meetings were just dropping off of our calendar left and right. Meanwhile, there’s all sorts of information. Everyone is very unclear about what’s going on.

Christian Talmage: There’s rumors that this is something that can live on cardboard and other surfaces for you know months at a time. All of our manufactured goods are coming from China at that time. And we said, we we took a hard look at each other and said, wait a minute.

Christian Talmage: Did we just lose this business because of some act of God that we never could have predicted, even though all the signals were pointing towards a massive success story? And it was humbling ah to say the least. It was a great reminder that ah you need to fight every single day. You can’t rest on your laurels. You need to reinvent yourself ah constantly if you’re going to grow and scale a business. And so we had to pause. We had to pause operations briefly. We paused our marketing.

Christian Talmage: Uh, we took a hard look at the world and said, like, what are we going to do? My co-founder and I took massive pay cuts, uh, to try to retain as much as the team as possible. But we frankly had no idea what the future was going to hold and.

Christian Talmage: only with the benefit of some time. We kept building some, we continued on building product. Our operations and marketing team said, you know, strategy is how white we operate in this new world. And ah shortly thereafter, we started to hear Wayfair reporting their best quarter ever. ah Amazon is starting to report massive furniture sales. And we said, wait a minute.

Christian Talmage: This is maybe our time to shine. So we started leaning back into it. We start to do so deliveries. We’re doing it in a much more like controlled manner. We’re not going into people’s homes in the same way. ah And soon we started to realize this is actually a huge tailwind for us. ah People are thinking a lot about redesigning their homes and and buying furniture. So um it was a ah dark moment and a scary moment. But again, perseverance pulled through.

Christian Talmage: And ultimately we were back to the races and and we ended up having a really good a couple quarters thereafter.

Alejandro Cremades: So then what happened, you know, next?

Christian Talmage: Next, you know we scale the business and we grew grew quite large. We started to run into a challenge of who actually is gonna acquire this business ah once you had become so heavily capitalized. ah Now all of a sudden there becomes a very real question. There’s relatively few buyers in you know the retail and furniture space.

Christian Talmage: And the question becomes, what are they actually purchasing you for? What is it that they’re going to get from acquiring you? Is it your customer cohort? ah It’s certainly not our catalog that have much broader teams working on their furniture selection.

Christian Talmage: much more refined strategies there. um Is it our operations? you know They have large distribution centers nationwide. And when we start to realize it’s it’s this underlying software tooling package that allows you to do ah returned goods very easily to build this compelling customer experience where people can shop online and have products swapped in and out very easily, where we can refurbish them and behind the scenes and then sell them again like new.

Christian Talmage: And so all of that technology was where we started to hang our hat. um We ran into some challenges because this was a a model shift. Uh, and when you are building a big retail oriented company, uh, the tendency is to raise a lot of venture debt so that you can finance that inventory, which we of course did. And we had, you know, compelling terms, but when we start to switch our business model, that became a point where a lot of these venture debt providers could actually say, well, this is something that we’re not comfortable with. We’re going to actually ask you to to pay off all of that principle. Um, and you got to think about the timeframe here. We’re in the middle of.

Christian Talmage: Late 2022, early 2023, financial markets are not looking very exciting. We’re seeing a massive market downturn, a very big correction across technology. ah And very shortly thereafter, we start to see big banks. ah We’re seeing bank runs. We’re seeing Silicon Valley Bank running into challenges. And so venture debt providers start to look wherever they can capture any sort of revenue. And so despite the fact that things were were looking very exciting, ah we start to get capital calls, people asking to pay down that principle, which we did not have enough capital in the bank to do.

Christian Talmage: And shortly thereafter, we’re forced to default. So like again, another one of those reminders that it never gets easier, no matter how exciting the project experience looks, no matter how good the metrics are. um It’s an act of perseverance and there will always be some major challenge that’s pushing against the success of the business, trying to fight with you ah to help you, you know, try to hold you down. So you’ve got to persevere through all this stuff.

Alejandro Cremades: What was that day where you guys decided that it was time to pull the plug? How was that for you?

Christian Talmage: Oh, it was terrible. It was, ah it was incredibly ah disappointing. I think, you know, after a certain scale, you start to think, you know, there’s a range of different outcomes that you might see, but you’re no longer worried about an outcome. You’re no longer worried about a complete business failure. um It really becomes a matter of economics. And, you know, is this going to be a really exciting opportunity for me and my family? Or is this going to be ah something that like we see meaningful return from, but,

Christian Talmage: to come to think that we were going to walk away empty-handed from this one was a big bummer for all of us.

Alejandro Cremades: No kidding. No kidding. so Obviously, the chapter comes to an end. and with when a new chapter When a chapter closes, a new chapter opens. and In this case, you know it ended up being dispatch, and with dispatch with dispatch goods. so why Talk to us about dispatch goods. What are you guys doing at dispatch goods? you know I know that you guys have raised the about $8 million. bucks um you know We obviously hope to hear something new that I know that is going to come out you know soon.

Alejandro Cremades: but they but But again, talk to us about what you guys are doing with dispatch groups and then also with aligning impact with business value.

Christian Talmage: Sure. Yeah, I mean, we’re very excited to announce some some recent round closures for dispatch goods. But for now, we’ll we’re not going to talk too much about any of those details. um Yeah, it was a very exciting business. After Oliver, I spent a little bit of time really focusing on climate and the different opportunities in that sector as a whole, which is really you know a microcosm of the economy as a whole.

Christian Talmage: And where were there really interesting places to play? Where were there interesting places where you could ah provide meaningful climate impact? You know, my wife and I, this is very important to us. We have children. ah We see the writing on the wall. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done on that front. How do you do that and how do you accomplish those types of goals while still wanting to build a successful business, still being a competitive entrepreneur, as we mentioned before?

Christian Talmage: and wanting to have a really great financial outcome. And I have to say there’s very few businesses that I’ve seen that actually fulfill both of those goals. incredibly well. You see a lot of very impact driven companies that don’t have economics that pencil out, don’t have they have major scalability concerns that are very much ah early kind of research oriented ideas that haven’t yet been proven in the market. And then you have great business models that are kind of cursory climate related

Christian Talmage: um Maybe they touch on it in a you know practical way or maybe it’s a lot of greenwashing and it’s difficult to tell sometimes until you really start to kick the tires. ah Dispatch for me was um you know one of a very short list of companies that actually fulfill both of those goals in a very compelling way.

Christian Talmage: Dispatch is taking a circular approach in the same way that we had applied circularity to Oliver as a mechanism for um you know eking out meaningful returns and and better utilizing inventory and ah products that have been you know mass produced. ah Dispatch has been doing a similar exercise with an industrial focus.

Christian Talmage: We’ve been focusing on secondary packaging, particularly in the world of cold chain, where these products are very expensive line items for any perishable goods. So think ah meal and grocery, DSC meal and grocery, ah home health products like Ozimpic and Wigobi. Any of these different products that are getting delivered to your doorstep that have temperature sensitivity, ah they’re all getting filled with gel packs, insulation, a lot of these products to help keep them at um at safe temperatures. And so all of this stuff has been optimized for a single use, right? ah You pack your your boxes and your packages with all of this extra material and consumer throws it all away. One, that’s an expensive line item. It’s about 10% of revenue for these companies. um Two, it’s a terrible customer experience. We talk to end users of our

Christian Talmage: enterprise customers all the time. One of the single things that they report the most is not the sustainability benefit of ah of reusing these things, but it’s the convenience of being able to just give it back.

Christian Talmage: and not having to think about what to do with these goopy chemical gel packs that they aren’t really comfortable taking apart and throwing away. ah There is a waste component. There is a guilt component to just using this product and throwing it all away. It’s a lot of material. And a lot of people just don’t even like breaking down boxes. They run out of space. ah They live in managed buildings or apartments where there isn’t that much room in their in their recycling bins. And so being able to give all this stuff back turnkey and knowing that it’s going to a good use and it’s going to get used again I think is very gratifying for people. So basically we can hit on three major bullets here which are ah cheaper for our enterprise customers substantially which they love obviously a better customer experience which their consumers love and so then they love ah and has all of this added green benefit just because

Christian Talmage: you know by nature of the business model, you’re reusing these things five to 15 times. It’s inherently far more sustainable than you know buying this stuff overseas, putting it on a ship, freighting it over here from China, and then throwing it away at the end of its cycle. ah So it really felt like a rare breed of business that actually has compelling economics, high potential for scale, and an exciting climate impact along the way.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s amazing. so i get say Now, you know let’s say I was to put you into a time machine, and I bring you back in time. you know Let’s say I bring you back in time to that moment that you were thinking about you know maybe starting all over space. It’s 2018. Let’s say you’re able to have a chat with your younger self, and you’re able to give that younger self one piece of advice for launching a business. What would that be and why, given what you know now?

Christian Talmage: One piece of of of advice before jumping into that business. One. I’d say it’s gonna be really hard. I don’t think that would have surprised me at the time. I don’t think I would appreciate what that actually means. It’s one thing to know. Conceptually, it’s another thing to live and breathe. When the book stops at you, um there are no more excuses. There is no more, I’m gonna look for another job. it becomes ah you know It becomes a huge part of your life. And so knowing that there is just that high degree of dedication,

Christian Talmage: Again, I don’t think I would understand, but I would want to hear it reminded to me. Maybe I would trust my my older self, my you know future self. um The other piece, you know maybe a good place to to think about is just the importance of culture, the importance of bringing on the right early hires. ah Talent is obviously incredibly important. That’s something that I think is easy for everybody to wrap their brains around.

Christian Talmage: Um, but that culture gets defined with every new employee and whether it’s implicit, whether it’s explicit or not, uh, there will be a culture. And so knowing who are these people who you really love working with, who are these people who you can throw a million problems at the wall and, uh, you know, spend late nights, weekends, just grinding through really difficult scenarios with and, you know, kind of trust with your life in a bunch of different ways. Um,

Christian Talmage: That’s what the people you want to be founding these companies with. That’s what’s going to help you be successful. I can’t say enough about what a game changer that kind of attitude is.

Alejandro Cremades: So, Christian, for the people that are listening that would love to reach out and say hi, what is the best way for them to do so?

Christian Talmage: Sure. Shoot me a a message that you can respond to me either on LinkedIn, uh, or shoot me a message at dispatch goods, Christian at a dispatch goods dot.com. Um, especially if you’re interested in, we’re going to be hiring for a lot of new roles very shortly here. Um, everything across engineering, data operations, um, finance, uh, shoot me a message. I’d love to talk to you if you’re interested, want to do some very big impactful work. Um, yeah, that’s the best way.

Alejandro Cremades: I love it. Well, hey, well, Christian, thank you so much for being on The Dealmaker Show. Really, really appreciate it. you know It has been and really an honor to have you with us, so thank you so, so much.

Christian Talmage: Alejandro, thanks for having me. I yeah i enjoyed the conversation and and I love the podcast. Thanks for the help.

*****

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