The story of Bramble Club
Our journey with Bramble began after a successful collaboration at Wefarm, where we scaled a global community of 3.5 million farmers, fostering knowledge sharing and supporting them as thriving business owners. Unfortunately, as is true for many startups - we had to close Wefarm down when a lead investor dropped out last minute, in the midst of the post-covid VC shut down. Each of us embarked on separate ventures - but we kept coming back together to discuss challenges, either our own, or those that founders and leaders were reaching out to us about.
In response, we began working closely with these founders, referring them to one another based on their specific practical needs. After 18 months of this collaborative but ad-hoc effort, we decided to establish Bramble Club as a dedicated community where we - and other seasoned operators - could provide founders and leaders with actionable advice rooted in real-life experience.
Why “Bramble”? Startups aren’t smooth. Growth isn’t linear. It’s easy to get lost and to lose sight of the bigger picture. And every startup comes with its prickly pain points - some leaving worse scars than others. But there are lessons we can all learn from to navigate these tangles - and at Bramble we bring together those who have been through it themselves.
Why “Club”? When you’ve worked in startups long enough, you’ll find yourself recommending the superstars you met along the way - time and time again. But our networks are restricted to our own experiences - and that’s what we want to solve at Bramble. We want to bring together founders and leaders looking for support, with experienced operators.
Kenny Ewan
Kenny is the former CEO and co-founder who led Wefarm to international success, connecting over 3.5 million users, growing the company from 1 to over 150 employees in mutiple international offices, and raising more than $40 million in venture capital from some of the world’s best VCs.
Known for his practical approach to defining company metrics and building relationships with leading VCs, he played a pivotal role in managing successful investment rounds. Before Bramble, he consulted for startups from seed to series B, providing insights on effective pitching and strategic development. At Bramble, Kenny shares his extensive experience and insights, offering startups invaluable advice to ensure they establish strong foundations for sustained success.
Michelle Davies
Michelle, an operational leader with a global perspective, has leveraged her strategic acumen to drive growth and shape culture in high-growth ventures like Wefarm (as VP People, then COO) & Phrasee. Her practical approach; balancing people, systems and data, has enabled companies to evolve seamlessly from seed stage, through merger, acquisition and downsizing, to international growth and exits. She’s led organisational growth from 20 to 300+ global team members, and $0 to $12M annual turnover.
At Bramble, Michelle shares her vast knowledge on culture design, operational scale, and global team building, guiding startups to navigate their journeys with clarity and confidence.
David Fogel
David is a seasoned VC and startup operator that has spent the last 20 years working with and advising more than 1,000 founders across Europe, Asia and Africa. The startups David has supported have raised more than $500m over the years. David was CCO and COO at Wefarm. David co-founded ADV, a £150m VC fund focused on early stage startups. David led the corporate venture arm for Telefonica and worked on M&A deals across the globe. Before moving into venture David built Fintech and Telco products in Israel. Where he grew the team from 4 to 60 employees and reached 70% market penetration.
At Bramble David works with founders on a wide range of topics from early stage product to business and commercial strategy, fundraising strategy as well as building company operations and company leadership. His super powers lie within commercial and company strategy and working specifically with founders to develop and grow into CEOs.
Sofie Malá
Sofie has spent the last 10 years as a marketing and growth leader in startups across Europe and Africa. Sofie specialises in building high performing teams in early stage startups and laying the foundational work to define and build the startup’s growth playbooks.
In previous startups, Sofie has led CAC reductions of 70%, boosted network effects by x3, and driven growth of MoM conversion by 80&. Led by her, companies have seen their acquisition boost to seven-figure growth while maintaining an increasing LTV. Currently, Sofie is VP of Growth at Yaga.
At Bramble, Sofie works with founders and marketing/growth leaders to drive the framework of her expertise in building teams and driving growth across different countries. While working mostly in dedicated 1:1s Sofie’s super powers lie with building distinctive brands, discovering and optimizing user acquisition channels, and building a fast learning and adaptive growth team.
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