Social Currency with Sammi Cohen

Julian Reis has built businesses across hedge funds, beauty clinics, China e-commerce, creator monetization, and now TikTok Shop infrastructure, but the throughline is the same: spotting where consumer behavior is headed before most people do.

In this episode, Julian tells Sammi how he went from trading at JPMorgan Chase to founding Skin Laundry, pricing mistakes that almost hurt the business, and the lessons that came from building a beauty concept globally. Then he explains why moving to Shanghai in 2018 changed everything: watching creators sell inside China’s super-app ecosystem convinced him that American retail was years behind and that social commerce would eventually reshape how Americans shop.

Julian breaks down how his company SuperOrdinary scaled from zero to 350 employees in China, helped brands like Drunk Elephant and Olaplex grow in Asia, and why TikTok Shop is creating a new kind of retail where creators function more like digital storefronts than influencers. He also shares why affiliate data matters more than follower counts, what kinds of products actually work on TikTok, why he believes creators may eventually IPO themselves, and how micro dramas could become the next major content-to-commerce engine.

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Here’s what Sammi covers with Julian:00:00 Julian Reis’ Social Currency04:07 The Finance Chapter11:18 Why Skin Laundry Almost Failed19:37 Moving to Shanghai23:19 Building Brands in China31:00 Why China’s KOL Economy Changed Everything34:49 TikTok Shop’s Massive U.S. Opportunity39:00 What Brands Need To Win TikTok45:14 Fanfix, Micro Dramas, and Creator Monetization51:43 Could Creators Become Public Companies?

53:03 Social Currency Corner54:31 The Future of AI Twins and Creator IP

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Before TikTok Shop, before influencers sold products through livestreams, QVC had already perfected the live shopping formula: charismatic hosts, product storytelling, and frictionless buying through a screen.

Today, Sammi unpacks how the company that built the category became trapped protecting the wrong business. QVC saw digital change coming, but instead of building for where consumer attention was moving, it spent billions doubling down on legacy retail through acquisitions like Zulily and HSN just as cable television was collapsing.

Now, with $6.6 billion in debt, restructuring talks underway, and TikTok becoming one of its last major growth bets, QVC has become a case study in what happens when a company masters a format but loses control of the platform that made it powerful.

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Here’s what Sammi covers today:

00:00 How QVC Became a Cash Flow Machine

03:15 The First Big Wrong Turn

03:33 Why Zulily Failed04:33 The HSN Bet

05:17 Doubling Down on a Shrinking Market

06:37 Rebrands, Layoffs, and Decline

08:06 Why QVC Turned to TikTok

09:18 The Debt Problem

10:19 The Capital Allocation Lesson

11:05 The Big Lesson From the Billion-Dollar Crisis
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Doug Evans didn’t just build a juicer… he built one of Silicon Valley’s most debated startups. As the founder of Juicero, Doug raised more than $100 million to bring cold-pressed juice into people’s homes, only to watch the company crumble after a viral Bloomberg article questioned whether the machine was even necessary.

In this episode, Doug tells Sammi his side of the story.  He shares what Juicero was actually trying to solve, the power of a takedown piece, and the surprising role geography played in the company’s fate. He opens up about stepping down as CEO, the shock of watching the company shut down with capital still in the bank, and the fallout that followed. Doug sets the record straight and shares what never made it into the takedown pieces. 

Then comes the reinvention. Doug shares how he retreated to the Mojave Desert, wrote a national bestselling book on sprouting, and launched a new direct-to-consumer company built around countertop food production. 

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Here’s what Sammi covers today with Doug:

00:00 Doug Evans’ Social Currency

02:55 The “Genetically Cursed” Mindset Shift

04:23 Building Organic Avenue Before Juice Was Cool

09:37 Why Juicero Had to Exist

14:52 The Bloomberg Squeeze Story

17:53 The Media Pile-On and Fallout

25:34 Lessons on Leadership and Investor Alignment

27:38 Going Reclusive After Juicero

33:51 Mojave Desert Reinvention

37:37 The Science Behind Sprouts

41:15 Writing The Sprout Book

46:23 Pitching Sprouts on Shark Tank

51:45 From Trauma to Confidence

56:39 Making Sprouting Mainstream

01:12:12 Social Currency Corner
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You can now get a discount on your Botox or Brow lift at… Erewhon? The latest partnership between Erewhon and med spa startup Ject isn’t just a publicity stunt. It’s a bigger signal: medical aesthetics has gone fully mainstream.

In this episode, Sammi unpacks how Botox went from cosmetic approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration just 14 years ago to a $17B industry with more than 10,000 med spas across the U.S. She breaks down the forces behind the boom like loosened regulations, cash-pay margins, social media normalization, and why private equity is racing to roll up the space. But when the product is commoditized, what’s the real moat?

Sammi’s takeaway: the brand is not the competitive advantage, it’s something else hiding in plain sight. 

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Here’s what Sammi covers today:

00:00 Grocery Store Botox 

01:15 How Med Spas Took Off 

02:04 Insane Growth By The Numbers 

02:55 Regulatory Changes 

03:36 Social Media’s Impact on the Landscape

04:28 Private Equity Moves In 

05:43 The Rollup Playbook 

06:48 HIV Outbreaks, Safety And Oversight Risks 

08:24 The Real Differentiator 

10:55 Who Wins Next Decade 

11:11 How to Show Social Currency Some Love
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Jesse Draper has heard it all: “nepo baby,” “charity fund,” “too niche”—and she turned every jab into fuel. After getting laughed out of rooms while raising her first fund, Jesse built Halogen Ventures into one of the earliest venture capital funds explicitly focused on backing female founders, now with 85+ portfolio companies and multiple unicorns.

In this episode, Jesse breaks down how she actually evaluates startups when they’re early (and sometimes barely making their first dollar), the metrics she thinks founders overhype, and the green flags that make her lean in, like radical transparency and founders who are obsessed enough to “check QuickBooks” mid-question. She also tells the wild story of why she’ll never invest off Zoom again, how social media has changed consumer investing, and what the DEI rollback is starting to look like inside venture.

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Jesse’s epic interview with Elon MuskFollow Jesse’s work at Halogen Ventures

Here’s what Sammi covers with Jesse

00:00 Jesse Draper’s Social Currency

00:50 Meet Jesse Draper

03:00 The Reality of Being Fourth Generation VC

06:13 The Valley Girl Show and the Elon Musk Interview

16:36 From Entertainment to Entrepreneurship

18:25 Getting Laughed Out of Pitches and Championing Female Founders

25:36 Crazy Pitch Stories

27:25 The Wild Con Artist Story

30:29 Never Invest Based on Zoom Meetings

34:03 The Viral “Investing In Women Is Not a F*cking Charity” Essay

37:16 Data That Investing in Women Works

38:09 What Founders Should Know About Conversations with VCs 

41:43 Red Flags and Green Flags

46:44 How Social Media Has Changed VCs

53:00 Future of Equity in VC

59:12 Investing in Alabama

01:07:56 Social Currency Corner

01:09:57 How to Show Social Currency Some Love
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