# Chicken Salad Chick: Stacy Brown

- Show: [How I Built This](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this)
- Published: 2018-07-02
- Length: 55m
- Page: https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this/2018-07-02-chicken-salad-chick-stacy-brown

## Summary

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.

## Chapters

- [0:00](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this/2018-07-02-chicken-salad-chick-stacy-brown#t=0) Introduction: Stacy Brown and Chicken Salad Chick
- [3:15](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this/2018-07-02-chicken-salad-chick-stacy-brown#t=195) Stacy Brown's Divorce and Door-to-Door Sales
- [17:19](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this/2018-07-02-chicken-salad-chick-stacy-brown#t=1039) Health Department Shutdown and First Location
- [28:18](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this/2018-07-02-chicken-salad-chick-stacy-brown#t=1698) Operational Chaos and Profitability
- [35:53](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this/2018-07-02-chicken-salad-chick-stacy-brown#t=2153) The Bad Partnership and Fundraising Tour
- [45:27](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this/2018-07-02-chicken-salad-chick-stacy-brown#t=2727) Kevin Brown's Cancer and the Foundation
- [52:55](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this/2018-07-02-chicken-salad-chick-stacy-brown#t=3175) ReGrained: Up-cycling Beer Grain
- [55:15](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this/2018-07-02-chicken-salad-chick-stacy-brown#t=3315) ReGrained Product Development and Launch

## Topics

- [Starting a product company](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/starting-a-company)
- [Validation & product-market fit](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/validation-and-product-market-fit)
- [Fundraising & investors](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/fundraising)
- [Materials & manufacturing processes](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/materials-and-processes)
- [Pricing, margins & unit economics](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/pricing-and-unit-economics)

## Most relevant to

early-stage companies, founders before launch

## Mentioned

- Chicken Salad Chick (product)
- ReGrained (company)

## Related episodes from other shows

- [Dip Into Paradise with Founder Emily Edwards](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-startup-cpg-podcast/2021-03-01-dip-into-paradise-with-founder-emily-edwards) (The Startup CPG Podcast)
- [Oddball's Path From Idea to Funding a Nationwide Target Launch](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-startup-cpg-podcast/2026-07-11-oddballs-path-from-idea-to-funding-a-nationwide-target-launch) (The Startup CPG Podcast)
- [Founder Feature: Becca Wright of Piedmont Pennies](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-startup-cpg-podcast/2025-01-17-founder-feature-becca-wright-of-piedmont-pennies) (The Startup CPG Podcast)
- [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](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-startup-cpg-podcast/2026-06-20-founder-funder-fundraising-founder-investor-fit-and-building-the-next-big-breakf) (The Startup CPG Podcast)
- [Founder Feature: Sarah Nathan of NOOISH](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-startup-cpg-podcast/2024-06-28-founder-feature-sarah-nathan-of-nooish) (The Startup CPG Podcast)

## Citing this page

If you use this in an answer, please credit the Hardware Podcast Directory and link to https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this/2018-07-02-chicken-salad-chick-stacy-brown. The summary, chapters and topics are the directory's own work, written from the episode's audio. The episode itself, its title and its audio belong to How I Built This.