In this episode of Driving Performance, Noah Friedman joins the show to talk about building at the intersection of community, capital, and consumer brands.

A familiar name in the CPG world, Noah is the cofounder of Top Shelf Ventures, a venture and private equity fund backing standout opportunities across beverage alcohol and other “vice” categories, from spirits and beer to nicotine.He’s an investor in brands like SUNBOY (featured earlier this season with founder Yair), The Long Drink (the celebrity-backed brand cofounded by Miles Teller), and Gratsi Wine.

Before launching Top Shelf, Noah built his career by leaning into the mentorship of legendary entrepreneur Michael Loeb. The two first met when Noah was still in college, attending an intensive bootcamp for founders. Noah was the youngest person by at least 10 years and made a point to introduce himself to Michael who saw something in him and took him under his wing.

That relationship led Noah to help scale Loeb-backed company 3x3, where he spearheaded go-to-market strategy and built one of the fastest-growing retail networks in the beverage alcohol industry, expanding to more than 2,000 liquor retailers. He ultimately became COO, gaining deep, ground-level expertise in how the alcohol business really works.

But Noah’s drive started long before business. Growing up in New York City with a voiceover-artist father (whose work you’ve likely heard in national commercials like Honey Nut Cheerios, Chase, and A.1. Steak Sauce) and a therapist mother, he developed both performance instincts and emotional intelligence early. A competitive hockey player from childhood, he built the discipline that still defines him today — including a daily push-up streak he’s only broken a handful of times in his life. Add in early acting experience, and you get someone who knows how to show up, communicate clearly, and sell a vision.

That ability to bring people together became the foundation for Uncharted, the media and events company Noah cofounded with Michael Loeb. What began as a single curated dinner in 2021 — an intimate gathering of high-performing founders and operators — evolved into a national community and marquee events business. Today, thousands of entrepreneurs have come through Uncharted gatherings, including its flagship summer summit in the Hamptons. Noah shares how intentional community-building leads to real relationships — and real deals.

We also dive into the power of mentorship and earned opportunity, including how Michael Loeb and longtime business partner Richard Vogel pushed Noah to raise outside capital for Top Shelf instead of handing him an easy check. That experience helped shape his investment philosophy and the thesis behind Top Shelf Ventures, where he now backs founders from seed to Series A in resilient, culturally relevant categories.

Finally, Noah talks about the future of consumer growth through Outersignal, a customer intelligence platform he’s an early investor in that helps brands unify data and deliver true 1:1 personalization at scale.

This episode is a masterclass in sales mentality, mentorship, community as strategy, and how long-term relationships compound into real opportunity.

Listen now to hear how Noah Friedman is driving performance across industries — and building ecosystems, not just companies.

In this episode of Driving Performance, we sit down with Chris Tiffin—better known as Tiffin—founder of Aisle, the retail growth platform trusted by nearly 750 brands to turn real-world marketing into measurable in-store sales.

Tiffin’s journey starts early. From running a high school landscaping business called *Weed Boys* to thinking he was headed for a finance and investment banking career, entrepreneurship was always close to home—his mother founded RunLites, after all. Everything changed when Supercoffee came to speak at his school. Tiffin slid into the founders’ DMs, landed an internship in 2017, dropped out of school, and quite literally lived on their couch.

At Supercoffee, he ran the online business during a period of hypergrowth—helping scale revenue from $700K to $5M in just one year. But as the brand grew in retail, Tiffin noticed a major blind spot: once products hit store shelves, brands lost visibility into who was buying and why.

That insight became the foundation for Aisle.

We unpack how Tiffin raised capital before Aisle even had a product (including a legendary investor cold email involving a grocery receipt), why early attempts as a consumer-only rewards app nearly burned through $400K, and how a pivot—sparked by Nuggs asking to white-label the technology—set Aisle on its current path.

Today, Aisle powers receipt-verified offers like BOGO and 50% off across more than 200,000 retail locations, pays shoppers back in minutes, and gives brands the data they’ve been missing in brick-and-mortar. Along the way, the company has raised over $5M in venture funding and facilitated more than $20M in rewards to shoppers—helping redefine promotions and loyalty in physical retail.

This conversation is a must-listen for anyone building in CPG, retail media, or consumer tech—and for founders navigating pivots, blind spots, and the realities of scaling fast.

In this episode, we sit down with Josh Suggs — Founder & CEO of StreetTalk (formerly 203Media) — the agency redefining how brands win attention through viral street interviews and reaction-driven content.

A self-taught creator who cut his teeth making Vine videos and YouTube vlogs, Josh has built one of the fastest-growing content agencies in the brand world by mastering what today’s audiences actually want to watch. His work has powered campaigns for brands like Dr. Squatch, Grüns, Mike’s Hot Honey, Tabs Chocolate, and more.

Josh’s path to entrepreneurship was anything but traditional.

In high school, he struggled with ADHD, spent time in special education classes, and had little interest in school — but an endless hunger to create. He knew early on that he wanted to be an entrepreneur and build through content. As a member of the tennis team, he got his first taste of business by teaching private lessons and marketing them through mom’s Facebook groups.

He later helped scale the breakout e-commerce brand Tabs Chocolate by managing its social content, turning it into a viral success powered by TikTok and UGC. In 2022, Josh dropped out of college to start 203Media, launching street interview campaigns for brands after helping a friend with content for his business. Within weeks, referrals started rolling in. What began as $50 full-suite videos quickly turned into a $20K first month — and kept scaling from there.

Today, StreetTalk sits at the center of the edutainment movement, where street interviews have become the ultimate form of reaction content.

In this episode, we cover:

• How Josh built a referral flywheel from day one
• Why street interviews are dominating brand marketing
• How he leveraged Twitter to build his team and win business
• His perspective on AI and the future of content
• And what it takes to scale a creator-first agency in a fast-moving world

A story about hustle, instincts, and building the future of brand content in real time — this is Josh Suggs on Driving Performance.