Stay ConnectedBrand Builder brings you the people, stories, and lessons learned from the most innovative brands in the world. Presented by SnackNation. Hosted by Sean Kelly, Jordan Cohen, and Jeff Murphy.
Similar to How I Built This, The Dave Ramsey Show, and Seeking Wisdom by Drift.
For our 50th episode, we have a classic conversation with Jason Nazar, an incredibly accomplished entrepreneur and Culture Builder extraordinaire.
Jason is the founder and former CEO of DocStoc (which was acquired by Intuit), and he's also a board member and advisor for some impressive companies. We're talking Wondery, The Bouqs, and StackCommerce to name but a few. Today Jason is the co-founder and CEO at Comparably, a company culture data platform.
Suffice to say, Jason has a ton of first-hand knowledge about building teams from the ground up, and he shares that in this long form interview with SnackNation CEO Sean Kelly. Jason also describes his first foray into entrepreneurship at age seven, explains why he did a 180 on the importance of culture, and reveals the three hiring rules that helped him build teams that win championships.
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Recommended Reading
Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.
Functional ingredients seem to be all the rage. But what's behind the functional ingredients craze in CPG these days?
To find out, we spoke to two companies and three entrepreneurs who are leading the functional ingredient revolution - MCT Co.'s Matthew Trimner and NeuroGum's Ryan Chen and Kent Yoshimura.
I turns out, functional products are all about aspiration - consumers are increasingly looking for products that aren't just clean, convenient, and taste amazing, but that make their lives better in a demonstrable way. They want products that move them a little bit closer to that ideal version of themselves.
A tall order for sure. To find out how to pull this off, we spoke to two companies and three entrepreneurs who are leading the charge.
Here are our main takeaways from this episode:
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Have an idea for the show? Drop us a line! Brandbuilder@snacknation.com.
Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.
This week we've got Zak Normandin, the Co Founder & CEO of Dirty Lemon Beverages
Dirty Lemon make functional beverages designed to help you get better sleep, elevate your metabolism, or just look your best.
Zak and the team have created a red-hot brand that's been a hit with consumers. But as we learn in this interview, there's so much more to it than that.
Dirty Lemon is the first consumer brand in the world to offer products exclusively via text message.
We're back with another "Culture Builder" edition of the podcast, where we focus on how to build great teams and become the leader your brand needs to reach that next level.
Our guest this week is Dr. John Izzo, author of six bestselling books, most recently releasing The Purpose Revolution, a manual to show leaders and companies how to transform their corporate culture so they can succeed in the midst of this Purpose Revolution.
Dr. Izzo has been a pioneer in creating thriving businesses for over twenty years, focused on the topics of employee engagement and social responsibility. He's spoken to over one million people, advised over 500 companies and helped some of the world's most admired companies.
We jump right into a conversation around the journey of humanity, exploring how humans can step into their highest possibilities. What does this look like? Izzo calls out three major shifts: our relationship to the planet, our relationship to each other and lastly to the economy.
Doing good is good business and is more fulfilling for leaders and employees. Citing a Harvard study, Izzo explains that when asked if activating purpose and social good within their company would make a big difference, 85% of CEOs said yes.
Expanding, he calls out that customers only rate 6% of brands as acting on purpose. This is a major opportunity for brands to increase customer attitudes and gain a competitive edge.
In this episode, learn how to embed purpose and social good in your company and ignite a revolution.
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What does it take to bring a totally new product to the US market? How do you go about sourcing the highest quality option for a single-ingredient product? How do you bring an ancient Indian practice to the US CPG industry?
Even after just a couple months to market, Priyal Bhartia and Nadine Habayeb of Bohana have answered these questions with their newly launched snack: popped water lily seeds.
Yes, that's a thing - and we'll tell all about how this dynamic duo is bringing this functional and delicious Indian ingredient to The States.
Bohana as a brand has a lot of depth to it… it's built around Ayurvedic principles and their core value of "free spirit snacking."
Priyal and Nadine talk about all this and share some great lessons learned, including why they had to develop their own supply chain from scratch.
Priyal fell in love with popped water lily seeds as a kid, recounting that she and her family used to eat them all the time as a staple in the Indian diet, and one of the only sanctioned foods that can be eaten during fasts. Years later, she shared some with her friend Nadine and they both knew they were onto something.
During Nadine's last couple of months in graduate school, the two tested the market by sharing water lily seeds with friends and classmates. After 6 months of market validation, the two began the process of building their brand, starting with the sourcing of the seeds. After finding that the supply chain was hugely disorganized, they decided to cut out the middleman and go straight to the farmers, developing relationships that allowed them to source high-quality product, have confidence in their ability to scale and give more of the profits back to the farmers.
After bringing the ingredient back to the US for production and perfecting the finished product, they worked to develop a brand that embodied their core value of "free spirit snacking."
Priyal and Nadine join us this week and take us along their journey to market through an 18 month R&D phase.
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Can you turn a commodity into a brand? How do you take something familiar, and build a story around it? How do you make something old new again?
Karma Nuts is doing exactly that. Founder and CEO Ganesh Nair has brought innovation and brand building to the common cashew.
The innovation is so simple, it's genius. Karma Nuts are wrapped, meaning they are presented with the skin on, which increases the flavor and provides as much antioxidants as blueberries and other superfoods.
We've seen this sort of innovation happen a few times with almonds, and to a lesser extent macadamia nuts, but never before in cashews, despite their popularity as a stand alone snack.
Why has this been so difficult? Part of the reason is the supply chain. Unlike many other popular nuts, cashews aren't grown in the U.S. - or even in the West for that matter. Virtually all of the cashew production takes place in the developing world, especially in India. Most of these are small, family run farms, and the supply chain is a collection of these smaller growers. The cashew industry lacks the monolithic, industrialized agribusinesses who are responsible for so much of the nut production - and brand and product creation - in the States.
It helps that Ganesh is also the CEO of Wenders Food and Western India Cashew Co, an 85 year old family-owned business.
Ganesh joined us this week to help us understand the ins and outs of this challenge, as well as talk to us about competitive moats, optimism, and why how much feedback you need before you can really invest in a brand building exercise like this.
I think it's fair to say that many entrepreneurs (or their investors) have an exit in mind as they're building their brand. It's a familiar trope - work like crazy for a few years, build some buzz and some momentum, and eventually a bigger fish is bound to snatch you up.
Of course, the reality of the experience is usually much different.
We wanted to know - why do companies consider mergers and acquisitions? How do you court a buyer? How do you reach a deal, and maybe more importantly, what happens next? Is it a matter of handing off the reigns to your new strategic partners, or is it something else? How do you merge your team?
To answer these questions, we've got Aihui Ong, the founder of EdgiLife and now the SVP of data and insights at SnackNation. This week on Brand Builder we bring you under the hood, going in depth on SnackNation's recent acquisition of EdgiLife and their marquee brand Love With Food. She tells us why she founded Love With Food, why she decided to merge with SnackNation, and what it's like to integrate her team into a brand new (albeit aligned) company culture.
We also speak to Aihui about data and insights, and how the best brands leverage data throughout their life cycle to get a step ahead of the competition.
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Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.
To follow up our conversation with KNOW Foods co-CEO Yemeni Mesa, we're replaying this classic culture-focused interview with Tom Bilyeu.
Tom is the co-founder of Quest Nutrition and now leads Impact Theory, a first-of-its-kind company designed to facilitate global change through the incubation of mission-based businesses and the cultivation of empowering content. Their mission? To "free people from The Matrix," which he explains in this interview.
This week we have Josh Taekman, the founder of EBOOST.
EBOOST provides clean performance products that increase energy, focus, and all-around well-being. One of the coolest things about EBOOST - from the beginning Josh and his team decided to treat it more like a fashion brand, and really make a lifestyle play in the CPG space.
The company also recently went through a brand refresh that looks amazing, and launched an RTD (ready to drink) clean energy product - which you can see at their site eboost.com.
On top of all the brand building strategies, Josh had some amazing stories from his time in the music industry working with Sean Combs (yes, Puff Daddy himself) and coming this close to launching a massive joint venture with 50 Cent.
SnackNation CEO Sean Kelly conducted this interview, and since it was such a great conversation, we've decided to present this one pretty much straight up.
If you have an innovative or functional product, you know that one of the biggest challenges is spreading the word about its features and benefits.
One problem - people don't connect with information. Consumers connect more on an emotional level, with aspirational messages or lifestyle images. A dissertation on the metabolic integrity of non-GMO allulose… that just isn't going to land.
The KNOW Foods team have found a solution - unleash the power of influencers.
This week, KNOW Foods Co-CEO Yemeni Mesa joins us to talk about the influencer strategy that's changing the game for the rapidly growing, keto-friendly baked goods brand.
Additionally, Yemeni and Jordan geek out on keto topics, and Yemeni shares the top three lessons learned from scaling Quest, one of the true unicorns in CPG.
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Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.
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