Dirt and Stars

It’s a little before six and the horses want breakfast.

Freya is at the gate. Teddy is behind her, pretending he isn’t in a hurry. Bo the burro is standing somewhere he shouldn’t be, staring at me like I owe him money. At 7,400 feet the stars are still out when I carry the hay.

That’s how almost all of my days start. Then I go inside, make a cup of coffee and open the laptop. I read what moved in the industry overnight, get on the phone with founders we’ve already backed, and decide which new consumer brands we should partner with.

For a long time I kept my lives in separate boxes. Five years in India studying with teachers who had never heard of a cap table. Years on a sailboat, and more in Mexico. A small Texas town, a brand I built from nothing, a fund, and now a ranch at 7,400 feet with horses who don’t care what I do for a living. I figured nobody in venture wanted to hear about the mornings on the ghats or Bo the burro. I’ve stopped sorting them, because every one of those lives made me a better investor.

I’m Genevieve Gilbreath. I co-founded Springdale Ventures, a consumer and CPG fund in 2019. Before that I ran SKU, an accelerator for consumer brands, and before that I built brands myself. I’ve been on the operator side of a bad quarter. I know what a co-packer’s voicemail sounds like when it’s bad news.

My roots are in Valley Mills, Texas. I’ve spent time sailing, lived on a boat in Mexico, studied along the Ganges in India, and ended up in New Mexico with horses, a burro, goats, dogs, cats and a beloved 1995 diesel F-350 that needs something every month, if not every week.

Horses taught me to read people. A horse knows how you feel before you do, and if you pay attention, a founder can’t hide it for long either. The land taught me patience. Nothing out here grows on a deadline. Running a business taught me where the parts are. The women who backed me along the way, mostly without fanfare, taught me what real support looks like.

That’s what this is about.

As often as I remember, I’ll write about consumer brands and the money behind them, and usually about whatever happened at the ranch that week that made it make sense. Some posts will be about the market: who raised, who sold, what I think it means. Some will be about a horse, or my son, or a fence that won’t hold a charge. Most will be both.

The name is borrowed from a book I keep saying I’ll finish. I was raised on dirt, on a ranch in Valley Mills, Texas. I’ve spent the rest of my life looking up. Dirt is the work. Stars are the part you can’t measure but steer by anyway.

The horses are back at the gate. I’ll see you soon!