This as-told-to composition is according to a conversation alongside Denise Woodard, originator and CEO of Partake Foods. The following has been edited for dimension and clarity.
I spent my occupation in person packaged products and spent important period at The Coca-Cola Company. Then my female Vivienne came along.
She's 11 now, but correct about her archetypal birthday, we had a brace of scary incidents that alerted us to the fact that she had multiple life-threatening food allergies. She was allergic to foods I regard to be excellent simple: eggs, tree nuts, bananas, and sesame.
I started to acknowledge that food allergies were going to rotate into a big part of our mundane lives. I was really disappointed alongside the options from a sensation and nutritional perspective. Most of all, I idea concerning how, emotionally, she wouldn't be capable to partake in so many social events akin anniversary parties, playdates, and academy snack time, and that she'd continually awareness excluded and othered.
I wanted to create a resolution for that.
In June 2016, I unified my food business as Vivi's Life LLC, since I fair wanted to create my daughter's existence easier.
I was knocking on doors, marketing cookies out of my car
We officially launched in the New York market, in autonomous stores, in August 2017, and from afterward all the way through 2019, I was knocking on doors and marketing cookies out of my car.
Our marketing strategy was excellent grassroots: local commerce shows and events, and demos in market stores. We didn't have any additional dollars, and those things disbursal our family time. It was a full-family adventure. We used to run about alongside a demo array in the rear of our car, and if we were in the city for the day and went to a shop that wasn't marketing cookies, we would exactly drag up and do a demo in that moment.
The storytelling and the tasting of the merchandise were our complete promotion scheme for the archetypal brace of years. Even as we've scaled and moved distant from demos, storytelling is specified a huge part of the business, and not fair the person marketing.
When I think concerning how we got our first investors on board, akin Marcy Venture Partners, the prosperity that Jay-Z co-founded, it was the storytelling of why I was doing what I was doing and what I wanted it to remain for that sold them.
If I were launching today, I'd motionless lean into a grassroots approach, but there are additional scalable ways to inform your narrative now. There are lone so many group I could conversation to in a natural foods grocer in New York, whereas on TikTok, millions of group can exactly see your story.
As the earth gets additional automated, I think individual contact and storytelling are equal additional valuable.
I ran into one difficulty that could've killed my small business
When we had an opportunity, we went following it, and I think we went following it too boldly in conditions of distribution. In 2019, we were in 300 stores, doing $350,000 in revenue. We completed 2020 in 5,000 stores, doing 10 times that amount, and afterward we doubled our entrance figure following that.
It expenses money, and it takes infrastructure and process, and it requires brand awareness that we couldn't pay for. That became an nearly deadly difficulty for the business. Rather than jumping in the two feet first, we should have waited to demonstrate several things out.
Like so many startups, we additionally got caught up in a growth-at-all-costs mentality. So many investors and another founders shooed distant the concentration on component economics: you'll get profitable whenever you scale. Then the market turned, and all of a abrupt it was profitable at all costs. That's not a toggle you can flip on and off without affecting people's careers and the trajectory of the business.
I desire I had taken a additional temperate approach.
I'm motionless operating on trusting my own intuition
It's really crucial to get multiple perspectives, but as the founder, I cognize additional concerning this endeavor than anyone else. Someone's years of cognition doesn't equate to them having additional cognition than you do concerning what's correct for your business.
Sometimes the advice wasn't equal stated to me. I have specified admiration for what Daniel Lubetzky built at KIND and Hamdi Ulukaya built at Chobani, but the two of those were in a extremely focused category. I watched their journeys and afterward applied the way they built to my own business in a way that I shouldn't have. We're functioning in a extremely distinct category. And I desire that we had innovated sooner.
Now Partake Foods is launching a macromolecule and fiber granola afterward this autumn and soft-baked individually wrapped cookies in Q1 of 2027. Protein is on fire in all the data, and fiber-maxing is the next hot thing.
The traditional chief of your endeavor is additional crucial than the size
In September, we announced that the Girl Scouts biscuit program chose to partner alongside us, and the cookies volition be accessible for acquisition from the Girl Scouts' Digital Cookie mobile app in January 2027.
The Girl Scouts program is complete 100 years old. I'd contend they likely have their choice of partners, but I think they chose us since of the brand equity we've built alongside the food allergy community. This has taught me that fair since you're not the biggest business doesn't average you don't bring value to much larger partnerships.
To me, traditional chief is what's important. It's whenever a individual or brand has earned adequate relevance, trust, and authenticity that they don't fair act in civilization — they have the capability to move it. For Partake, the traditional chief I desire us to build is about inclusivity.
We started alongside food allergies, but I've continually believed the idea is much bigger than that.
Our commission is 80% women of color, the squad is extremely diverse, and we have a 501(c)(3) aimed at increasing diversity in the food industry. It's all about this ethos of construction a bigger table. I have this plus-one mentality: How can you continually bring one additional individual into the room, create one additional introduction? Somebody saying yes or making an introduction has entirely changed the trajectory of my endeavor and my existence so many times over.
Size doesn't necessarily matter whenever it comes to having influence. We slid into Ben & Jerry's LinkedIn DMs in 2020 whenever we were a squad of five people. In January 2023, we announced our alliance alongside them to provision the gluten-free oatmeal biscuit pieces inner their varieties of Oatmeal Dream Pie accessible in pints and scoop shops.
I was one individual marketing cookies out of my car. What endeavor did I have thinking I was going to go discover Jay-Z? Dream big and fire your shot. If you don't, it's not going to happen.
Do you have a small endeavor instruction to share? Email the editor, Manseen Logan, at [email protected].
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Brianne Garrett is a journalist, editor, and strategist focused on entrepreneurship, lifestyle, and food. Before pivoting to freelancing, she held editorial roles at brands including Sweet July, Forbes, and Wine Spectator. She's additionally the originator of Stella, a newsletter, podcast, and community phase that champions and connects Black women in media. A dual inhabitant of the United States and United Kingdom, she lives between London and New York.
