The Story of a Brand Show

She Co-Founded Hims and Hers. Now She's Coming for Your Morning Routine. Ramon Vela sits down with Hilary Coles , Co-Founder & CEO of POCA and Co-Founder of Hims & Hers , for a warm and revealing conversation about the lessons learned scaling a billion-dollar brand, the gap in the low-sugar coffee and matcha category, and the deeply personal conviction behind her newest venture. * The suit story t...

Getting on shelf is not the win. Staying there is the business.  Rose Hamilton , CEO of Compass Rose Ventures and co-host of The Story of a Brand Show , sits down with Michael Marquis , CEO of Raw Sugar , for a masterclass in what retail really reveals about a brand.  With more than 20,000 doors across Target , Walmart , CVS, Walgreens, Meijer, Sally Beauty, Amazon, and DTC, Raw Sugar is one of th...

Most supplement brands start with a formula. Jason Dyer started with a philosophy.  Ramon Vela sits down with Jason Dyer , Co-Founder of Farmana , for a deeply thoughtful conversation about twenty-two years of experience in the health and wellness industry, a personal transformation that changed everything, and a brand built on the radical idea that real nutrition should begin where it always has:...

A flood destroyed the factory, the FDA shut them down, and the company had almost no cash and then something remarkable happened.  Ramon Vela sits down with Alex Whitmore , Founder & CEO of Taza Chocolate , for a deeply human conversation about twenty-plus years of stone-ground, mission-driven chocolate making in Somerville, Massachusetts.  From a transformative trip to Oaxaca to pioneering direct...

Pet food looks like a food category, but it behaves like a trust category and nobody understands that better than Michael Meyer .  Rose Hamilton , CEO of Compass Rose Ventures and co-host of The Story of a Brand Show , sits down with Michael for an operator masterclass that goes far beyond pet food into the deeper mechanics of how premium consumer brands get built, scaled, and sustained.  With exp...

She left Goldman Sachs , moved to Mozambique for a year, and came back to build one of the most distinct wellness brands in America.  Rose Hamilton, CEO of Compass Rose Ventures and co-host of The Story of a Brand Show , sits down with Shizu Okusa , Founder & CEO of Apothékary , for a masterclass in what it really means to build a brand system not just a product line. From a New York City billboar...

Most people get their hormone levels tested once a year — if they think about it at all. Marina Pavlovic Rivas , Co-Founder & CEO of Eli Health , is on a mission to change that.  Ramon Vela sits down with Marina for a fascinating conversation about the technology she spent nearly seven years building: a saliva-based, at-home hormone monitoring platform that delivers cortisol, testosterone, and pro...

What if the snack in your kid's lunchbox was doing more harm than good?  Ramon Vela sits down with Steve Weiss , Co-Founder of Snakkidz , for a warm and eye-opening conversation about the state of kids' nutrition, the problem with processed snacks, and the family business born from one dad's refusal to settle for the status quo.  Snakkidz makes chewy, gluten-free, better-for-you snack bars for kid...

He sold the family business, watched someone else run it into the ground, and then bought it back.  Rose Hamilton , CEO of Compass Rose Ventures and co-host of The Story of a Brand Show , sits down with Ryan Alovis , CEO of LensDirect.com , for one of the most honest and layered founder conversations the show has ever hosted.   LensDirect has been in Ryan's family for a hundred years; from a great...

Most edible gifting businesses don't work at scale, the logistics are brutal, the margins get squeezed, and the moment quality slips, the whole experience breaks. Rachel Solomon Fascitelli built Boarderie anyway, and it worked.  Rose Hamilton , CEO of Compass Rose Ventures and co-host of The Story of a Brand Show , sits down with Rachel to unpack how a finance background, a COVID pivot, and an obs...

Ramon Vela sits down with Dan Kessler , COO of The Mind Company , for a conversation that starts with a sobering question: what's actually happening to the human brain right now and what can we do about it?  The Mind Company is the only company in the world to win App of the Year twice, from both Apple and Google , and with three distinct apps — Elevate, Balance, and Spark — it's quietly building...

Ramon Vela sits down with Mahsa Vazin , PhD, Founder & CEO of PawCo , for a conversation that's as much about love and purpose as it is about pet nutrition.  Mahsa didn't set out to disrupt the pet food industry — she set out to take better care of her dog, Paco. What follows is a story of science, conviction, and a growing movement of pet parents who believe their dogs deserve a whole lot more th...

Rose Hamilton , CEO of Compass Rose Ventures and co-host of The Story of a Brand Show , sits down with Ben Zvaifler , Founder & CEO of Cloud Water Filters , for a conversation that cuts right to the heart of one of the most overlooked categories in consumer wellness.  Cloud isn't just a better water filter, it's a second-act founder's bet that the water sitting quietly under your kitchen sink is t...

Ramon Vela sits down with Ron Schneidermann , CEO of Acely , for a conversation that spans two decades of startup building, a category-defining exit, and a brand-new mission to help high school students conquer the SAT and ACT.  Ron is the kind of founder who doesn't just build companies he transforms categories. From scaling AllTrails from a six-person team to a household name, to launching Acely...

Ramon Vela sits down with Arin Schultz , Chief Growth Officer at Naturepedic , to dig into one of the most quietly compelling brand stories in the sleep and wellness space. Naturepedic isn't just another wellness brand riding the organic wave — it's a company built from genuine conviction, founded by engineers who refused to compromise long before "clean" was cool. From a river that caught on fire...

Scaling a company is hard. Changing behavior is harder—and that's exactly what this business is doing. In this episode of The Story of a Brand , host Rose Hamilton , CEO of Compass Rose Ventures , sits down with Joe Spector , Founder and CEO of Dutch Pet, Inc. , for a fascinating conversation about building not just a company—but a completely new consumer behavior. Joe had already built a billion-...

In this episode, Ramon Vela sits down with Lauren Hidalgo , Founder and CEO of Aware House — a curated online marketplace built exclusively to support independent, small-batch makers.  Lauren shares how frustration with overcrowded platforms like Etsy led her to build something better: a discovery destination where quality, craftsmanship, and transparency come first. * From frustration to founder....

Returning guest Yash Chavan , Founder and CEO of SARAL , joins Ramon Vela to announce the launch of SATHI (mysathi.io) — a new affiliate marketing platform designed to eliminate the fraud, attribution failures, and operational chaos that quietly kill brand affiliate programs. * The recruitment treadmill is real. Last-click attribution ignores every affiliate who nurtured and introduced customers —...

Most Brands Don't Fail Because They Can't Get Into Retail — They Fail Because They Got There Too Soon. In this episode of The Story of a Brand Show , host Rose Hamilton sits down with Ari Bloom , Founder & CEO of A-Frame Brands — the strategic operator behind multiple consumer brands built across 10,000+ retail doors.  Ari has spent his career building brands from the inside out, and this conversa...

Building a brand in the wellness space is one thing—reimagining how consumers experience vitamins entirely is another.  In this episode of The Story of a Brand , Rose Hamilton sits down with Leslie Danford , Founder at Vitaminis , to explore how she's doing exactly that. From challenging traditional formats to creating a more joyful, design-forward approach to daily health, Leslie shares how Vitam...

What if one of the biggest barriers to building a successful brand isn't the product—but the stigma around it? In this episode, I sit down with Alexandra Fine , Founder and CEO of Dame , for a thoughtful and wide-ranging conversation about building a brand in a taboo category, challenging societal norms, and redefining what leadership and wellness can look like.  What stood out to me most is how A...

Why are most brands chasing 25-year-olds… when the most powerful consumers are actually over 50? In this episode of The Story of a Brand Show, host Rose Hamilton , CEO of Compass Rose Ventures , sits down with Tim Parr , Founder and CEO of Caddis , for a bold and refreshing conversation about building a brand for a demographic the industry has largely ignored. What unfolds is a story about seeing...

In this episode of The Story of a Brand , host Rose Hamilton , CEO of Compass Rose Ventures , sits down with Sucharita Kodal i, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research , for a thoughtful and strategic conversation about the forces reshaping modern retail. The discussion draws on Rose's experience as an operator inside brands like The Vitamin Shoppe and Nutrafol , where Forrester...

I've interviewed a lot of founders over the years, but every now and then I come across a brand that truly reimagines an everyday experience. That's exactly what happened in my conversation with David Rabie , Co-founder and CEO of Tovala .  Born out of a simple but powerful frustration: wanting a fresh, home-cooked meal without all the work that comes with it. David and his team have not just buil...

In this episode of The Story of a Brand Show , host Rose Hamilton , CEO of Compass Rose Ventures , sits down with Lisa Chodnofsky , Chief Brand Officer for Vitamin Shoppe , for a thoughtful and energizing conversation about what it truly takes to steward an iconic brand in today's evolving wellness landscape. Throughout the discussion, Rose and Lisa explore the responsibility that comes with leadi...