Hardware Podcasts

Chicken Salad Chick: Stacy Brown

How I Built This · 2 Jul 2018 · 55m

What this episode covers

Stacy Brown, founder of Chicken Salad Chick, explains how she turned a divorce-driven need for income into a $75 million franchise empire, starting with door-to-door sales of homemade chicken salad. She details the struggle to secure funding, the pivotal decision to partner with Kevin Brown, and the painful lesson of losing majority control to a bad partner before raising capital from Erlin McCorder to buy them back. The episode also covers Dan Kurzrock and Jordan Schwartz of ReGrained, who up-cycled spent beer grain into ReGrained nutrition bars, solving texture issues by grinding the grain into flour.

Most relevant to

early-stage companies and founders before launch

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
ReGrained
Products
Chicken Salad Chick

Related episodes from other shows

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • The Startup CPG Podcast · 21m

    Dip Into Paradise with Founder Emily Edwards

    Emily Edwards, founder of Paradise Icing (Emily's Foods), explains how she transitioned from social work to developing a plant-based icing using pea protein. She details her 18-month product development process at the Purdue Food Science Lab, where she overcame initial taste failures to create a shelf-stable, allergen-free product. Edwards discusses her strategy of bootstrapping the business due to difficulties securing venture capital, while leveraging her social work skills for consumer research and transparent brand storytelling. She outlines her current focus on expanding flavor lines, securing retail placements in boutique grocers and schools, and managing early-stage operations with a small team.

    Validation & product-market fitStarting a product company
    7 chapters

  • The Startup CPG Podcast · 32m

    Oddball's Path From Idea to Funding a Nationwide Target Launch

    Sophia Cheng, Founder and CEO of Oddball, details her unconventional path from management consulting and Bridgewater Associates to launching a fruit snack brand inspired by her childhood in Singapore. She explains how she validated the product through benchtop formulations at farmers markets and pitch competitions before securing funding, ultimately achieving a nationwide launch at Target. Cheng discusses the specific challenges of fundraising as a first-time, minority woman founder in 2023, emphasizing the mental shift from convincing investors to finding aligned partners, and her strategy for managing a cap table with approximately 20 investors in her first round.

    Fundraising & investorsValidation & product-market fit
    6 chapters

  • The Startup CPG Podcast · 33m

    Founder Feature: Becca Wright of Piedmont Pennies

    Becca Wright, founder of Piedmont Pennies, explains how she turned her grandfather's North Carolina cheese cracker recipe into a bootstrapped CPG brand now sold in 35 states. She details the decision to self-manufacture to protect product quality, describing the transition from hand-pinch production to semi-automated packaging and the challenges of finding affordable commercial real estate. Wright also discusses her retail strategy, focusing on boutique and gifting channels rather than mass grocery, and her use of grants to fund early equipment purchases.

    Starting a product companyManufacturing partners & offshoring
    7 chapters

  • The Startup CPG Podcast · 48m

    Founder + Funder: Fundraising, Founder-Investor Fit, and Building the Next Big Breakfast Brand with Emily Groden of Evergreen and Brian Bernstein of Rich Products Ventures

    Emily Groden, Founder and CEO of Evergreen, and Brian Bernstein, Principal at Rich Products Ventures, discuss the journey of building Evergreen from homemade waffles into a nationally distributed frozen breakfast brand. They detail the fundraising process, emphasizing the importance of founder-investor fit, operational alignment, and building relationships long before capital is needed. The conversation covers Evergreen's product expansion from mini waffles to pancakes and protein products, as well as the diligence and strategic value provided by a corporate venture fund.

    Fundraising & investorsValidation & product-market fit
    8 chapters

  • The Startup CPG Podcast · 34m

    Founder Feature: Sarah Nathan of NOOISH

    Sarah Nathan, founder of NOOISH, discusses launching a shelf-stable instant matzo ball soup, leveraging her decade of CPG experience from roles at Chobani Incubator and Patagonia Provisions. She details the two-year recipe development process, utilizing barter networks and resources from the American Egg Board to create a clean-label broth. Nathan explains her decision to self-manufacture to ensure quality control and her strategy of funding the venture through a community-driven pre-order campaign and diverse business loans.

    Starting a product companyValidation & product-market fit
    8 chapters

The summary, chapters and topics are generated from the episode’s audio by this directory, not written by How I Built This. The episode itself belongs to its publisher.