#100 Toasting to 100 Episodes of The Startup CPG Podcast with Our Favorite Moments

The Startup CPG Podcast · 25 Jul 2023 · 44m · Episode 77

What this episode covers

Host Jessi Freitag counts down the top 10 moments from 100 episodes of The Startup CPG Podcast, featuring insights from founders like Seth Goldman of Honest Tea, Alexiou Gibson of The Sea Moss Transformation Factory, and Rosa Li of wildwonder. The episode highlights strategic decisions in fundraising, marketing, and product launches, including Sandra Velasquez’s Shark Tank experience with Nopalera and the collaboration between Partake Foods and Ben & Jerry’s. It emphasizes the importance of resilience, storytelling, and direct outreach in scaling consumer brands.

Mentioned

Companies
VMG Partners, Aura Bora, Mind the Font, Grassroots Demos, Food Business News, Partake Foods, GT's Living Foods
Products
Honest Tea, Just Ice Tea, Nowhere Bakery, The Sea Moss Transformation Factory, wildwonder, Nopalera, Pricklee, Oat Haus, Ben & Jerry’s, SOMOS, Liquid Death

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • How I Built This · 1h 05m

    Live Episode! Milk Bar: Christina Tosi (2019)

    Christina Tosi, founder of Milk Bar, explains how she transitioned from a pastry cook at high-end NYC restaurants like WD50 and Momofuku to opening her own bakery in 2008 with mentor David Chang. She details the creation of iconic products like crack pie and compost cookies, which were born from improvisation and a desire to make nostalgic, unfussy desserts accessible. Tosi describes scaling the business from a single East Village location to 16 shops and a national retail presence, emphasizing her decision to keep prices low and bootstrap the company for eight years before raising outside capital. The episode highlights her operational challenges, including managing supply chains for mail-order goods and expanding production capacity to support growth.

  • How I Built This · 1h 26m

    Perfect Snacks: Bill and Leigh Keith

    Bill and Leigh Keith, co-founders of Perfect Bars, explain how they turned their father's homemade peanut butter and honey recipe into a major CPG brand, eventually selling to Mondelēz International. They detail the bootstrapped journey from hand-rolling bars in a Sacramento warehouse to securing deals with Whole Foods and Costco, and the critical decision to introduce a chocolate chip flavor to meet investor metrics. The episode highlights a major crisis when a false positive salmonella test forced a massive recall, nearly shutting down the company before they secured $15 million in investment from VMG Partners.

  • How I Built This · 29m

    Honest Tea: Seth Goldman

    Seth Goldman, co-founder of Honest Tea, explains how he identified a 'sweetness gap' in the beverage market and launched the company with $50,000 from his father. He details the early challenges of securing a Whole Foods order, brewing tea in mesh bags at a juice plant, and navigating distributor rejection. Goldman also discusses a critical quality failure involving faulty glass bottles that forced a voluntary recall, and how maintaining control through a unique equity structure allowed Honest Tea to grow before being acquired by Coca-Cola.

  • How I Built This · 1h 03m

    Live Episode! Angie's BOOMCHICKAPOP: Angie & Dan Bastian (2019)

    Angie and Dan Bastian, founders of BOOMCHICKAPOP, recount their journey from a $10,000 side hustle to a $250 million acquisition by Conagra. They discuss the grueling early days of selling kettle corn at Minnesota Vikings games and local supermarkets, the financial struggles of scaling production, and the pivotal decision to rebrand from Angie's Kettle Corn to BOOMCHICKAPOP to appeal to a broader, female-centric market. The episode highlights their strategic partnerships with Trader Joe's and Costco, the role of private equity firms Sherbrooke Capital and TPG in professionalizing the business, and how they maintained their marriage and company culture through intense growth.

  • How I Built This · 1h 30m

    Food52: Amanda Hesser (2021)

    Amanda Hesser, co-founder of Food52, recounts her journey from a New York Times food writer to launching a digital media and e-commerce company. After a failed tech startup called Seawinkle, she pivoted to Food52 with co-founder Meryl Stubbs, initially bootstrapping the venture using her cookbook advance while operating out of her apartment. The episode details their struggle to secure venture capital, the decision to build trust through curation rather than affiliate links, and the long path to profitability achieved in 2020.

The summary, chapters and topics are generated from the episode’s audio by this directory, not written by The Startup CPG Podcast. The episode itself belongs to its publisher.