Commerce is Chaos

Jamie Norwood has built Winx Health into a profitable women's health brand revolutionizing sexual and vaginal wellness. Since launching in 2019, she's scaled from a single DTC pregnancy test to a nationwide presence in over 7,000 Walgreens stores, achieved profitability in early 2024 by eliminating paid marketing entirely, and built Real Talk - an educational platform with 900+ medically-reviewed...

Louise Fritjofsson is the co-founder and CEO of Martie, an online discount grocery marketplace that rescues surplus food from waste while making quality groceries accessible nationwide. A four-time founder with two exits across Europe and the United States, Louise has scaled Martie since 2021 to 48 states, partnered with 4,500+ brands, and saved millions of pounds of food from landfills – all with...

Will Nitze has built IQBAR into a leading brain and body nutrition brand by making unconventional operational decisions. From bringing his supply chain in-house during COVID to keeping his team lean through strategic agency partnerships, Will has scaled distribution across major retailers while maintaining profitability. His wife serves as CMO, his agencies work on performance-based contracts with...

Amanda Goetz is the founder of House of Wise, a luxury CBD brand focused on women's sleep, sex, stress, and strength. She built the company while working as VP of Marketing at The Knot, ultimately selling to a cannabis company. Her experience offers unique insights into building brands in stigmatized categories, managing corporate-to-founder transitions, and navigating complex exit processes. 🔧 R...

Victoria Ho brings a rare dual perspective to consumer brands—over a decade consulting for CPG companies through Sherpa CPG, and now building her own Ayurvedic cooking paste brand, Khalo, after a personal health journey through chemotherapy led her back to ancient wellness principles. 🔧 The Consultant-to-Founder Transition - Insights on what changes when you move from advising brands to building...

Greg Brown is the SVP of Operations at Dude Wipes, the category-creating personal care brand that's disrupted the men's hygiene space. Under his operational leadership, Dude Wipes has scaled to major retail partners including Target, Walmart, and Kroger, while expanding from a single SKU to a full portfolio of personal care products. 🔧 Compliance Risk Management - Framework for operationally mana...

Umaimah Sharwani is the founder of Paro, a South Asian comfort food brand bringing authentic Pakistani recipes to the American mainstream market. A first-generation Pakistani American who previously scaled digitally native brands like Glossier, Bravo Sierra, and Jet.com, Umaimah launched Paro after years of product development. The brand is named after her mother and features family recipes for Ma...

Leslie Tessler has built Hanni into a breakthrough body care brand that reimagines sustainable beauty for busy lifestyles. After burning out from beauty marketing, she spent 11 years in Argentina before returning to launch Hanni in 2021. Since then, she's scaled from DTC to all ~600 Sephora doors, raised $3.73M, achieved $1M Amazon run rate in under a year, and is approaching profitability while d...

Anna Whiteman is a Partner at Coefficient Capital, where she leads early growth investments in digitally powered consumer brands. Previously at VMG Partners working on investments including Quest Nutrition, Drunk Elephant, and Spindrift, she now focuses on brands that align the physical world with the digital universe. Her current portfolio includes Magic Spoon, Hawthorne, and NomNom. Forbes named...

Allison Luvera has built Juliet into a category-disrupting wine brand that's completely reimagined boxed wine. She's raised $6 million, achieved 150% year-over-year growth, scaled to 700+ retail doors including Costco and Whole Foods, and is projecting revenue to triple between 2024 and 2025. Taking luxury marketing principles from her years at Pernod Ricard working on brands like Perrier-Joüet an...

Lauryn Bodden has built S'noods into the first chef-driven noodle chip brand after winning Netflix's Snack vs Chef. In less than two years, she's scaled from a KitchenAid pasta maker in her home kitchen to 225+ retail locations including Fairway, ShopRite, and The Fresh Market—all while bootstrapping as a solo founder and actively fundraising. 🔧 Novel Product Validation Framework - Systematic app...

Charlotte Cruze has built Alice Mushrooms into a breakthrough wellness brand, creating functional mushroom chocolates that make mushrooms mainstream. Since launching in 2022, she's secured investment from L Catterton and celebrity backers like Zac Efron, scaled to over 400 retail locations including Erewhon, and is projecting eight-figure revenue with 175% year-over-year growth. 🔧 Category Educat...

Natalie Sportelli is a Director at Bullish, the unique early-stage consumer VC and creative agency that invests $500K-$3M while providing hands-on operational support. Working with portfolio companies like Warby Parker, Sunday Lawn, and Hally Hair, she brings a rare perspective from journalism at Forbes, platform work at Lerer Hippeau, and startup operations at Thingtesting to help consumer brands...

Blakely and Jordan have built SaladSprinkles into a distinctive category-creating CPG brand, launching sprinkle-sized rice puffs that are replacing croutons with their #NoMoreCroutons positioning. Within their first year, they successfully launched three SKUs, built customer loyalty, and exhibited at major trade shows while bootstrapping their growth. 🔧 Category Creation Framework - Step-by-step...

Building Better-for-You Products That Actually Taste Good: The WHIMS Playbook for Premium CPG Jesse Barruch cracked the code that stumps most better-for-you brands: creating a 1-gram sugar chocolate that actually tastes like the original. As co-founder of WHIMS, he's proven that healthy alternatives don't have to sacrifice on flavor—but getting there requires systematic operational excellence. In...

How a VP of Process Turns Operational Chaos Into Scalable Systems: Frameworks from Inside ARMRA Noah Averbach holds one of the most critical roles in modern consumer brands: VP of Process at ARMRA. As companies scale, the operational complexity becomes overwhelming—and that's exactly what Noah was hired to solve. In this episode, Noah breaks down the systematic approaches he's developed to identif...

Scaling CPG in the Most Competitive Category: Oat Milk Founder's Playbook for Retail Success Christina Dorr Drake built Willa's Oat Milk from concept to national distribution in one of the most brutal CPG categories. Competing against giants like Oatly and Califia, she's developed battle-tested frameworks that any consumer brand can use to win at retail. In this episode, Christina shares the syste...

How to Build Better Products That Actually Work: Frameworks from the Founder Who Disrupted Shaving & Body Care Adam Simone has cracked the code on sustainable product innovation. As co-founder of Leaf Shave (helping thousands ditch plastic razors) and Smoosh (revolutionizing body care), he's proven that eco-friendly alternatives can actually work BETTER than conventional options. In this episo...

On today's episode of Best Day Ever, Sam is joined by Isabelle Steichen. Isabelle founded Lupii in 2019 and reflects on the wins and headwinds from its lifetime-- and how those learnings have lead her to find her "why" on the other side.

Two product developers at heart geek out on all things cookware, kitchenwares, and white label, featuring host Samantha Rose (GIR, Mvnifest, Endless Commerce) with guest Bibi Nucci of Creative Home and Kitchen! 

Maxwell is the founder of BackerKit, which helps thousands of crowdfunding creators all over the world focus on doing what they love. Maxwell and Sam talk GIR's Kickstarter beginnings, and a big update for the BackerKit team.

From lifeguard to serial founder, my buddy JR Simich-- founder of Vive Organics-- and I talk alignment, saying no to make space for a yes, goal-setting, and more! 

Sam sits down with Haven's Kitchen founder Alison Cayne who talks us through her journey to start the cooking school turned nationally distributed CPG brand-- and how she sees things now on the other side of running the business. Great lessons and learnings for founders of all stages and sizes!

I caught up with my buddy Mike Constantiner on his founder journey-- from starting Cameo, to PRNCPLS, to his current gig as an angel investor in buzzy consumer brands like Sanzo, Vacation and Cadence, and as founder of Freestyle. 

How do you set a consumer brand up for success? What tools can you lean on to help engineer a brand and product that's both engineered for TikTok-era virality while also ensuring it has  longevity ? Petra Brands CRO Geoff Bekavac has done it all, and he joins me on the podcast to dish on the exact stack he uses to build a solid foundation.