Tod Francis has spent 15 years conducting original research on parent-child relationships, surveying over 1,000 young adults and creating a "Pyramid of Connection" framework that he shares at conferences as a personal mission alongside his venture capital work. He has developed a distinctive investment thesis that maps retail history cycles to e-commerce evolution, from early specialty retail through department stores and big-box discount back to data-rich specialty concepts, which he uses to evaluate direct-to-consumer brands that reinvent existing consumer behaviors rather than create entirely new ones. Tod Francis has spent 15 years conducting original research on parent-child relationships, surveying over 1,000 young adults and creating a "Pyramid of Connection" framework that he shares at conferences as a personal mission alongside his venture capital work. He has developed a distinctive investment thesis that maps retail history cycles to e-commerce evolution, from early specialty retail through department stores and big-box discount back to data-rich specialty concepts, which he uses to evaluate direct-to-consumer brands that reinvent existing consumer behaviors rather than create entirely new ones.