Adam King on Why He Joined GroundForce Capital

March 7, 2024

I am excit­ed to announce that I recent­ly joined Ground­Force Cap­i­tal to con­tin­ue my pas­sion for con­sumer invest­ing. I look for­ward to work­ing with a team of smart and cre­ative indi­vid­u­als, part­ner­ing with unique brands and inno­v­a­tive founders, and con­stant­ly learn­ing more about how con­sumers per­ceive prod­ucts and using these insights to inform suc­cess­ful con­sumer invest­ing.

I’ve been curi­ous about eco­nom­ics and per­son­al con­sump­tion since long before I knew what those terms meant. As a fifth grad­er liv­ing in Rome, Italy, pre-dawn runs with my dad afford­ed a per­fect out­let for explor­ing my curiosi­ties. After a mile or so warm up on par­tic­u­lar­ly brisk win­ter morn­ings, miles 2–5 were filled with ques­tions. Why does gas cost so much per liter? How much does a CEO make? Can I get an X‑box? While no top­ics were off lim­its, they often involved my desire for the lat­est and great­est elec­tron­ic gad­get. Some vari­a­tion of “If you real­ly want it, save up and buy it your­self” was com­mon. “How much do you think it costs”? “Why does it cost so much”? I’d ask. “What dri­ves price?” he’d reply, know­ing I could recall and apply the con­cept of sup­ply of demand if prompt­ed. The back and forth would con­tin­ue as con­cepts and appli­ca­tions became more nuanced. Too much of a good thing? We’d laugh about dimin­ish­ing — or even neg­a­tive — mar­gin­al util­i­ty. These ear­ly runs afford­ed me fond child­hood mem­o­ries and stoked a pas­sion for dis­tance run­ning. And impor­tant­ly, they instilled some foun­da­tion­al con­cepts and a frame­work for inquiry that allow me to explore and under­stand the world around me at a much deep­er lev­el.

Those expe­ri­ences and learn­ings are key dri­vers of my inter­est and pas­sion for con­sumer invest­ing. I con­stant­ly look around and con­sid­er why peo­ple like the prod­ucts they do, and how those pref­er­ences fuel the pow­er of brands. At Ground­Force Cap­i­tal, we seek to iden­ti­fy what the next dis­rup­tive con­sumer, food, and food relat­ed prod­uct or ser­vice may be in a giv­en seg­ment, or how the re-posi­tion­ing of an old­er prod­uct can cre­ate con­sumer res­o­nance that dri­ves out-sized growth. What I enjoy most about work­ing at Ground­Force Cap­i­tal is hav­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to re-cre­ate those mem­o­rable expe­ri­ences as a young run­ner: curi­ous­ly explor­ing a top­ic or oppor­tu­ni­ty, pur­su­ing thought­ful and relent­less inquiry, and then work­ing with impres­sive peo­ple to reach and apply insight­ful con­clu­sions and learn­ings.