David R. Bell

David R. Bell headshot
David R. Bell
Author, Professor, Investor, and Thought Leader

Referred to as the “guru of the DTC movement,” by Inc. Magazine and the “man who kickstarted the direct brand economy,” by IAB, David is co-founder and President at Idea Farm Ventures (IFV), a consumer and retail investment company based in New York. David was an early investor in iconic new economy brands including Diapers.com (acq. by Amazon for $545m), Jet.com (acq. by Walmart for $3.3b), Bonobos (acq. by Walmart for $310m), Burrow (private) Cotopaxi, (private), Dagne Dover (private), Harry’s (private), and Warby Parker (WRBY), among many others. In 2025, IFV portfolio company Touchland sold to Church & Dwight for $880m.

Before IFV, David had a 20-year academic career at Wharton where he was a chaired professor, award-winning teacher and researcher, and originator of courses on digital marketing and e-commerce. Research awards from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) include the Frank M. Bass Outstanding Dissertation Award, John D.C. Little Best Paper Finalist Award (three), Marketing Science Long Term Impact Finalist Award (two), and Best Operations Management Paper in Management Science Finalist Award (two). In addition, he received the First Place Award for the Production and Operations Management Society Applied Research Challenge, Workshop in Information Systems and Economics Overall Best Paper Award, among others. 

David is a frequent keynote speaker at founder events and for clients including Alibaba, Google, Haier, Mastercard, Microsoft, NAICS, Nike, and Ralph. His book Location Is (Still) Everything is a playbook for how to win in the digital economy and recent MIT Sloan Management articles “How to Win in an Omnichannel World” and “The Store is Dead—Long Live the Store” are bestsellers at Harvard Business School Publishing. He has in all premier academic journals in the marketing field (Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Management Science, and Marketing Science. 

David holds a Ph.D. (Business) and M.S. (Statistics) from Stanford University as well as a B. Com and M. Com (1st Class Honors) from University of Auckland.