The Tidbit

We have discussed many different ways to access capital on this show - and have focused primarily on pitching potential investors and working with CDFIs (community development financial institutions). What are other ways in which you can raise money? On this episode we’re going to learn more about crowdfunding - especially as a product based business. The tips we share revolve around how to active...

Who has the power to be at the table, so to speak? What are new ways in which we can build trust in the decision making process - particularly around investment and how our money moves? On this episode we talk with Allyson Redpath, who just launched Citrine Angels. Their mission is to support the growth and success of female-founded businesses in the Washington DC metro area and increase access to...

Whether you’re a budding restauranter, café owner, or even possibly opening a craft brewery or distiller, what do you need to think about from an experience design perspective through to permitting and financing to make sure you are set up for success? We want to avoid as many financial pitfalls as we can before even opening doors! This is why I’ve asked Steven Sorrell of Sorrell Design to join us...

One of the hardest pieces of the brand identity puzzle is putting into words the feelings you want to communicate to your end customer. On this episode, we pull examples from Chez Panisse to &pizza as to how you should be thinking about building your brand identity from vision to reality. We're joined in-studio with Alexi New, Co-Founder of Noted - a branding consultancy based in Washington DC...

Have you ever desired a different way to navigate your life and career? Perhaps a source of guidance other than the advice or the models of 'success' or guidance around you, which may not resonate to you? What if you could create a new kind of clarity, and feel a more authentic connection with your own insight? These are the questions posed by this episode's guest, Allie Armitage. This is the impo...

How do we design a life, design a business where external market demands are in sync with our internal desires? We're often fed a narrative that a business must "figure it out" from the beginning - their business model, their scaling strategy, etc. - before ever entering into the market. Imagine rethinking what it means to be creative, and the creative process, applying it to our own liv...

Knowing your numbers. This is THE MOST important part of running a business, and the bane of existence for most business owners. We sit down with Maryellen Georgiadis, Owner of Finance A La Carte, to discuss three core components you need to think about when starting and running a food and beverage business - especially as a budding restauranteur. What pieces of the finance and accouting puzzle ar...

According to one analysis, roughly 2 percent of venture capital funding in 2017 went to all-female teams, compared to 79 percent that went to all-male teams. We’re all very tribal beings. We seek out what we know, what is familiar. But this has an extremely negative effect when the money held, access to opportunity is held, by one dominant race, gender, or class. How can we have a diverse, resilie...

What happens when you can really change behavior on a systems level, upending those traditional power dynamics through empowerment and mentorship? On this episode of The Tidbit we discuss entrepreneurship in challenging places, inspired by her recent SXSW talk, featuring Kalsoom Lakhani. Kalsoom is the Founder & CEO of Invest2Innovate, which aims to support and unleash the potential of young e...

A strategic partner is another business with whom you enter into an agreement that aims to help both of you achieve more success. But, of course, what that success is must be determined and agreed upon by both parties. On this episode, we explore the 4 key tenets of HOW to build a strategic partnerships with Erin Lenhardt and Sally Rogers, Co-Founders of Parsnip. Parsnip’s vision is to connect bet...

Thomas Jefferson’s gardening efforts resulted in success and failure. He used his 1,000-ft kitchen garden as a laboratory, growing over 300 types of vegetables. His focus wasn’t profit or production, though; but rather knowledge. Jefferson exchanged seeds with people from all over the world and as a result, introduced new and unusual plants not found elsewhere. One of Monticello's emeritus scholar...

As your company grows and you can no longer fulfill demand, you have to make a decision: do you invest in a larger production facility, or do you outsource to a co-packer? We're joined on this episode by three incredible industry experts to discuss all of the reasons why co-manufacturing is a great business to get into, how you should do business with a co-packer so all parties are set-up for succ...

When I talk about the education and consulting side of our business at Cureate, I often say: you may know how to make jam, but not know how to run a jam business - that’s where we come in! A huge part in figuring out if your food business is going to succeed is understanding how to price your product, and all of the factors to consider when doing so. Grab a piece of paper and pen, because we’re ab...

We're joined on this episode by Rahaf Harfoush, a Digital Anthropologist and Best-Selling Author who researches the impacts of emerging technologies on our society. Tune in to hear our discussion around our belief systems of work, the historical tension between creativity and productivity, and how Rahaf became a Beyoncé-ologist while researching the principles highlighted in her latest book, Hustl...

A topic that keeps surfacing these days is around self care and entrepreneurship. On The Tidbit, we're particularly interested in this discussion as it relates to the beliefs we tell ourselves, how the media exacerbates those beliefs, and how cultural collective consciousness norms keep us in race, gender, and/or socio-economic boxes. To discuss this intersection, we’re joined in-studio by Sarah M...

If you’re an emerging CPG (consumer packed goods) business, and you’re looking to level up your game and get onto a retail shelf in a grocery store or corporate cafeteria, what do you need to do to be prepared? On this minisode we dicuss three tips for winning over a retail buyer. ★ ★ ★ Our mission includes the sharing of education and access to resources - and the best way to reach more listeners...

The 2018 Farm Bill was signed into effect in an unheard of (for this era!) bipartisan manner. Passage of the Farm Bill marks a watershed event for hemp, a crop planted centuries ago by America’s founding fathers - making it once again legal to grow and sell. Quoting Hemp is Now Legal. That's Huge for CBD Industry. a Vox piece states: "[This] Farm Bill opportunity isn’t just for farmers. The D...

What are the fields emerging in food & beverage broadly that we can begin to think up new ventures and new ways of approaching challenges that are encroaching upon us as a society? Our imaginations soar as we sit down with Jenn Goggin, a co-founder of Startle, an innovation studio for the food ecosystem. On this episode of The Tidbit we discuss new innovations across the food & beverage su...

Many entrepreneurs struggle with creating tangible metrics around focused goals. On today’s minisode, we’re going to discuss the framework created by Google called OKRs - Objectives, and Key Results. It’s a system for tracking your desired objectives and keeping yourself accountable. To supplement this episode, we've created an OKR template digital download for food & beverage small business o...

As the last show of the season and year, we discuss the framework - Core Desired Feelings by Danielle LaPorte - that is a healthier way of setting oneself up for success. For example, instead of saying: I want to lose weight or I want to make x-amount of dollars - what is it that you’re ACTUALLY looking to achieve by losing weight or making more money? Do you want to feel more confident? Do you wa...

'Tis the season for holiday shopping! Which means, this is also the season where many food entrepreneurs make at least 40% of their sales for the year. If you’re a longtime listener of The Tidbit, you know that we advocate for shifting our purchasing dollars back into the local economy YEAR ROUND. But, we certainly can not ignore the impact this time of year has on our local economies. Tune in as...

At Cureate we get a ton of inbound emails from individuals who are looking to start a career in food. Yes, it is stated as plainly as that - I want to work in food. Now, the food system is extremely vast and there are certainly a lot of challenges - and therefore business opportunities - to tackle. Listeners, you are all at different stages in your food journey so, on this episode, we discuss the...

At the time of this episode's recording, we are a couple of weeks after the 2018 midterm election and it is also Thanksgiving week. Now, The Tidbit is a show about entrepreneurship lessons learned and tips on starting/running a small business... and, this may be obvious, but - let's state this plainly - a lot of small business owners go into business with their family members; and/or, especially a...

This season on The Tidbit we’ve discussed ways to increase your access to social capital, and how to create infrastructure and support for entrepreneurial ecosystems. We continue to sit down with business owners to discuss their tidbits of knowledge and lessons learned along the way — and we’ve begun showcasing Buyers and the opportunities presented around increasing demand for local, small busine...

How can we create ecosystems that build supportive infrastructure where small business owners feel taken care of and supported? Think of the base of Maslow’s Hierarchy - shelter, location. If you can’t rely on your business home to be a constant, how will you ever be able to grow? Naturally you’ll always be operating out of a scarcity mindset. We sit down with entrepreneurship ecosystem builder Do...