Commerce is Chaos

Judah Bergman is the Founder and President of Jool Baby, a fully bootstrapped baby gear and child-safety brand he started in 2015 with a single magnetic cabinet lock he designed because no product on the market met his standard. Since then, he’s grown Jool Baby into an eight-figure Amazon business with distribution across Target, Walmart, Babylist, and TikTok Shop — without a single outside invest...

Ted Repic is the CEO of Rhino USA: the family-owned adventure gear company his sons Cameron and Dylan started in 2015 with a pickup truck and a gap in the market. Cameron was 19. Dylan jumped in with his savings while he was still in high school. Ted came in as CEO to help guide the growth. A decade later: nine figures in revenue, 300+ products, Walmart, Sam's Club, AutoZone, and one of the most u...

Before Jennie Ripps built one of the most talked-about RTD brands in the country, she was convincing Momofuku and Soho House that tea deserved to be taken as seriously as wine. That instinct — that what's actually in your glass matters — became the entire thesis behind Owl's Brew. She launched it in 2020, right as the world shut down, and grew 918% in year one anyway. No sampling. No playbook. Jus...

Aaron Menitoff and his wife Julie spent over 20 years catering high-end events in South Florida — think Prince Harry and Bruce Springsteen — before the pandemic canceled everything overnight. So they did what any reasonable couple would do, bet the farm and built something entirely new. The idea was simple: ship fully assembled, catering-quality cheese and charcuterie boards overnight, anywhere in...

David McCormick co-founded Ayoh Foods with Molly Baz, the cook, writer, and food personality who has basically rewired how a generation thinks about cooking and eating. Together they built a chef-driven mayo made with 100% pure avocado oil, and created a condiment that's making sandwich craftsmanship exciting again. The lineup — Original Mayo, Hot Giardinayo, Dill Pickle Mayo, Miso Mayo, and Tangy...

Helen Smith is the Founder and CEO of Roo & You, Canada's largest manufacturer of modular play couches for children. A Kurdish immigrant and former child and youth counselor, Helen built the business from a home office under the stairs: Self-funded, no outside capital, no industry connections. She grew her operations from a silicone teething brand into a design-forward kids' furniture company...

Alison Whritenour has spent two decades turning mission-driven brands into commercially serious businesses — from Colgate-Palmolive to a decade climbing every function at Seventh Generation, surviving its Unilever acquisition, and now leading Unreal Snacks as Chief Commercial Officer. She also teaches the practical application of sustainable business models at the UVM Business School. She knows ex...

Shannon Davenport is the Founder & CEO of Esker Beauty, a clean, plant-based bodycare brand she launched in 2018 after 12 years as a trend forecaster for global brands including L'Oréal, Unilever, and Beiersdorf. She bootstrapped Esker to approximately $1M in revenue before raising outside capital, building a premium retail presence at Bergdorf Goodman, Net-a-Porter, Credo Beauty, and Anthropo...

Caryn Wasser has spent nearly seven years building Little Spoon into the largest direct-to-consumer kids' food brand in the U.S. — scaling from a two-person startup to $150M+ in net revenue across 11 product categories, and recently engineering what Target called its largest food and beverage launch of all time: 23 products across six aisles in 1,800+ stores. Named a Breakout Brand Leader by Ad Ag...

🍦 DANIEL GOETZ // GOODPOP FOUNDER & CEO  Daniel Goetz built GoodPop from a $3,500 investment and a borrowed kitchen at UT Austin into one of the U.S.'s top-performing better-for-you frozen novelty brands — generating over $63 million in gross sales across 10,000+ retail locations including Costco, Walmart, and Whole Foods. In 15 years, he has never taken outside funding, built custom manufact...

Hudson Davis-Ross has spent nearly two decades building and scaling consumer brands, culminating in Plant People — the practitioner-grade supplement brand now ranking as the #1 seller at Whole Foods, Sprouts, and Erewhon. After co-founding RISE Brewing Co., running CROSBY Advisory, and serving on the founding team at ALOHA, Hudson bootstrapped Plant People through a major category pivot, a pandemi...

Nakul Kapoor left a career at the International Monetary Fund to build Lazy Food Co., a brand making authentic Italian one-pot pasta meals that are gluten-free, high-protein, and ready in under 20 minutes. Now available nationwide at Whole Foods Market and on Amazon, Lazy Food Co. was named to Whole Foods' Top 10 Food Trends for 2024 alongside some of the most talked-about names in modern food. 🔧...

Description Ali Kriegsman built Bulletin, the B2B wholesale marketplace, from a side-hustle newsletter at age 24 to a full-scale platform connecting 3,000 independent brands with over 26,000 retailers — before selling to Emerald Holding for roughly $10 million in 2022. Since then, she's channeled that builder's lens into consulting for early- to mid-stage consumer and DTC brands, advising on ShopM...

Brian Rose is Co-founder of Endless Commerce, an AI-powered commerceOS serving consumer brands scaling from $1M to $500M+ in revenue. With nearly a decade at BlueMountain Capital as a Consumer & Retail Investment Analyst, Brian brings a unique perspective combining investment analysis, brand operations as CFO of GIR (sold to Pattern Brands in 2021), and infrastructure building through Mvnifest...

Jake Kouns has built Dead Meat Society into a mission-driven grilling community after founding and scaling Risk Based Security, a cybersecurity company acquired by Flashpoint in 2022. Transitioning from B2B SaaS to consumer products, he's launched a grilling tools brand with a social purpose - fighting the loneliness epidemic by bringing people together around flame, family, and community. Dead Me...

Emily Groden has built Evergreen into one of America's fastest-growing frozen breakfast brands, scaling from a household Vitamix to $9.3 million in retail sales across 8,000+ stores. A Harvard Law graduate who cold-emailed her way from corporate law to General Counsel at three-Michelin-star Alinea, she launched Evergreen in 2020 with zero CPG experience. Now her fruit-and-vegetable-packed frozen w...

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...