Rachel Ten Brink’s Wild Entrepreneurial Journey: From Selling Perfume Subscriptions to AI Investing

Aggaeus · Mar 26, 2026 · 1h 17m

Rachel ten Brink has lived the full loop: corporate operator → YC-backed founder → GP at Red Bike Capital. She co-founded Scentbird, helped pioneer early DTC growth (before “playbooks” existed), and now backs founders at pre-seed and seed as a VC.

In this episode, Rachel shares thestory behind the wins: the awkward first meetings, the bad business models, the “almost gave up” moment, and the tactical moves that finally made Scentbird click—pricing discipline, retention-first subscription thinking, and early influencer marketing before it was crowded.

Then we flip to the investor lens: what…