Hardware Podcasts

Founder Feature: Building a Women's Health Beverage Brand and Landing Nationwide Sprouts Distribution in Months with Anastasia Sartan of The Cycle

The Startup CPG Podcast · 26 Jun 2026 · 32m · Episode 329

What this episode covers

Anastasia Sartan, founder of The Cycle, explains how her personal struggle with PMDD and data science background led her to formulate functional beverages using sea buckthorn and organic liquid herbal extracts. She details the rapid scaling from a kitchen hobby to securing nationwide distribution at Sprouts within three months of launch, highlighting the critical role of ingredient efficacy and branding in winning over buyers. Sartan also discusses the operational challenges of national retail, including managing supply chain logistics with Kehim and balancing paid marketing spend against organic velocity.

Most relevant to

companies scaling up

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Sprouts, Snapchat, Startup CPG, Kehim, Instacart
Products
The Cycle
Materials
Sea Buckthorn
Also
PubMed

Related episodes from other shows

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • How I Built This · 57m

    Health-Ade Kombucha: Daina Trout

    Daina Trout, co-founder of Health-Ade Kombucha, explains how a failed attempt to create a natural hair loss product pivoted into a kombucha brand after realizing the formulation was too difficult. Starting in her Los Angeles apartment closet, Trout, her husband Justin, and friend Vanessa Dew sold kombucha at farmer's markets, eventually quitting their jobs at GlaxoSmithKline to scale the business. The company secured $2 million in Series A funding from First Beverage, allowing them to move from home brewing to professional facilities and secure distribution deals with retailers like Erewhon and Gelson's.

    Starting a product companyValidation & product-market fit
    8 chapters

  • How I Built This · 1h 11m

    Guayakí Yerba Mate: David Karr and Chris Mann

    Guayakí co-founders David Karr and Chris Mann explain how they built a $100 million beverage company by introducing yerba mate to the U.S. market, starting with hand-packing loose tea and touring in a VW bus to demo the product. They detail the strategic pivot to bottled and then canned ready-to-drink formats, which allowed them to scale beyond niche natural food stores into broader retail channels. The founders also describe the difficult decision to build their own direct store distribution network using Chevy Bolts to maintain control over their brand and supply chain relationships.

    Starting a product companyScaling production
    8 chapters

  • How I Built This · 21m

    How I Built Resilience: Kara Goldin of Hint

    Kara Goldin, founder and CEO of Hint, explains how she launched the unsweetened flavored water brand after quitting diet soda to improve her health. She details the challenges of entering the saturated beverage industry without prior experience, specifically the difficulty of convincing retailers to stock a new category and the technical hurdle of creating a preservative-free product using real fruit. Goldin also discusses how Hint navigated the pandemic by leveraging its automated US-based manufacturing and pivoting aggressively to direct-to-consumer sales, which tripled during the crisis.

    Starting a product companyMaterials & manufacturing processes
    7 chapters

  • How I Built This · 37m

    What It Really Takes To Build a Food Business: Part 2

    Becca Millstein of Fishwife, Brian Rudolph of Banza, and Caue Suplicy of Barnana discuss scaling their food brands from direct-to-consumer origins to national retail presence. They detail strategies for product-market fit, including influencer seeding, packaging design, and navigating supply chain disruptions and misinformation crises. The founders also share advice on co-founder dynamics, customer segmentation, and the importance of brand moats in the competitive CPG landscape.

    Direct-to-consumer & e-commerceMarketing & brand
    8 chapters

  • How I Built This · 1h 06m

    Poppi: Allison and Stephen Ellsworth. From Farmers Market Vinegar Drink to $2B Soda Sensation

    Allison and Stephen Ellsworth, founders of Poppi, explain how they transformed a home-brewed apple cider vinegar drink into a $2 billion prebiotic soda acquired by Pepsi. They detail the pivot from 'Mother Beverage' to Poppi, driven by Shark Tank investor Rohan Oza’s critique that their branding was 'sh*t,' leading to a rebrand with colored cans and a 'functional soda' positioning. The founders describe overcoming early carbonation failures, securing Whole Foods distribution, and leveraging TikTok and Amazon to explode sales during the pandemic, culminating in a Super Bowl ad and eventual acquisition.

    Crowdfunding & preordersDirect-to-consumer & e-commerce
    7 chapters

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.