Unit Economics

On today’s episode, I sit down with Seamus Menihane , Co-Founder and CEO of Armada , an entertainment merchandise company that works with artists and brands to design, manufacture, and distribute merchandise across e-commerce and live touring. Seamus started his career as a touring musician, playing drums in bands for years before becoming interested in the business mechanics behind the scenes, pa...

On today's episode, I sit down with Lil Tuffy , a San Francisco-based poster artist who’s spent more than two decades designing and hand-printing concert posters. Tuffy's path into poster design started almost accidentally. After leaving the tech world and getting involved in the San Francisco music scene, he began making posters for shows around the city. What started as creating unsolicited post...

On today’s episode, I sit down with Sherri Franklin , founder of Muttville , a senior dog rescue based in San Francisco that has helped find homes for more than 14,000 older dogs. Sherri didn’t start her career in animal welfare. She was a hairstylist who had previously owned several salons in San Francisco when she began volunteering at a local shelter in the 90s. After watching a dog she loved g...

On today’s episode, I sit down with Kelly Bennett , brand strategist and host of the Emerging Brands Podcast. Kelly has spent the last 16 years working alongside founders in the food and beverage space, helping them turn early product ideas into shelf-ready brands. Her focus is pre-launch brand strategy, which means she’s often involved before a founder has finalized a name, filed a trademark, or...

On today’s episode, I sit down with Brian McMahon, co-founder and CEO of Pickle, a peer-to-peer rental marketplace built around the idea that the things sitting in our closets can function as income-generating assets. Brian started his career in finance before teaching himself how to code and launching what was originally a social polling app designed to help people make purchase decisions. But af...

On today’s episode, I sit down with Adam Gillman , Co-Founder of Hiya , a direct-to-consumer children’s vitamin and wellness company built around trust, transparency, and customer education as core operating principles. We talk through how Hiya approached product development without prior experience in the health and wellness space, including how they thought about formulation tradeoffs, manufactu...

On today’s episode, I sit down with Kiki Couchman and Elan Halpern, the co-founders of Sourmilk. Sourmilk is built around a simple but differentiated premise: take something 92% of households already consume and engineer it to deliver measurable gut-health impact. We talk through how they formulated around specific probiotic strains rather than optimizing purely for flavor, what it looked like to...

On today's episode, I sit down with Joe Hollier , co-founder of Light , the company behind the Light Phone — a minimalist mobile device designed to be used as little as possible. We talk about how the company emerged from an experimental Google design program, why Joe and his co-founder chose to build hardware in a software-dominated world, and what it actually takes to bring a new phone to market...

In today's episode, I sit down with Sara Victorio , founder of Hotel Ceramics , a one-person handmade ceramics studio based in Portland, Oregon. We talk about how Hotel operates as a solo manufacturing business, from product design and material inputs to kiln capacity, production methods, and quality control. Sara walks through why she shifted from wheel throwing to slip casting, how that decision...

In today's episode, I sit down with  Nate Mell , founder of  Felt + Fat , a Philadelphia-based ceramics company producing tableware for both restaurants and direct-to-consumer customers. We talk about how Felt + Fat began supplying custom tableware to restaurants, why ceramics made sense as a business from a unit-economics perspective, and how debt-financed equipment shaped the company’s growth an...

In today's episode, I sit down with Jared Klusner, founder of  Erstwhile , a jewelry business built around highly curated vintage and vintage-inspired pieces. We talk about Jared’s path into the jewelry world, how sourcing actually works in a niche, relationship-driven market, and why trust and expertise matter so much when you’re dealing in rare, one-of-a-kind goods. We also get into the mechanic...

On today's episode, I sit down with  Lucy Dana , co-founder and CEO of  One Trick Pony , a peanut butter brand built around Argentinian peanuts and a novel approach to jar design. Lucy walks through the tradeoffs involved in supplier selection, inventory risk, and manufacturing control, including the very real consequences of getting early production decisions wrong. We get into how One Trick Pony...

In this episode, I sit down with Lauryn Menard, founder of GOB , a company rethinking single-use personal care products starting with earplugs made from mycelium. We talk about how GOB came to focus on a category most people overlook, and what it actually takes to commercialize a new biomaterial in a space dominated by low-cost, petroleum-based incumbents. Lauryn walks through the early research p...

In this episode, I sit down with Hilary Dubin and Caroline Huber, co-founders of Jones — a modern nicotine-cessation company built for people trying to quit vaping. Jones combines FDA-approved nicotine mints, a form of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), with an app that provides behavioral support and community. Hilary and Caroline started the company after struggling to quit nicotine themselves...

On today’s episode, I sit down with Dan Cassaro, Dan Christofferson, and Meg Yahashi — the team behind Weast Coast Games , a modern board game company designing beautifully crafted tabletop games. Weast Coast grew out of Young Jerks (the branding and packaging studio they’ve been building for over a decade) and this conversation provides a look at what happens when a design firm decides to make it...

In this episode, I sit down with Elliott Walker and Tim Hucklesby, co-founders of  Nymzo  — a modern chess brand rethinking one of the world’s most traditional games. Elliott and Tim are longtime brand designers, and their perspective on product, positioning, and credibility shows up in every part of Nymzo’s story. We talk through how they identified a real gap in the chess market based on what th...

On today's episode, I sit down with Jamey Stegmaier, Co-Founder & CEO of Stonemaier Games — the studio behind modern board game staples like Wingspan, Scythe, and Viticulture. We dig into what it  actually  takes to run a board game company at scale: the economics of manufacturing in China, navigating tariffs and freight costs, the true timeline of bringing a game from idea to shelf, and how S...

In this week’s episode I sit down with Dave Allee, Founder of Almond Surfboards — one of the most respected surf brands in the market. Dave started Almond back in 2009 with a deep appreciation for craftsmanship, heritage, and timeless design, and over the past 15+ years he’s grown it into a brand that customers genuinely trust. We talk through what it actually takes to build durable, meaningful pr...

In this week’s episode, I sat down with Ilay Karateke, Co-founder & CEO of  Bezi , the Labneh brand working to introduce an entirely new category to U.S. grocery shelves. We dig into what Labneh actually is, why it hasn’t historically broken through in mainstream retail, and what it takes to introduce a new category rather than compete in an already understood space. We talk through the realit...

In this episode, I sit down with Nash Howe, founder of Currently Running — a new running apparel brand built at the intersection of product, art, and storytelling. Nash is like no one I've ever met. His passion for running, art, and brand building is infectious and it made for an incredibly compelling conversation. Nash walks through his path from creative work in film, photography, and music to b...

In this episode, we sit down with Michael Fisher, founder and CEO of ⁠ Rotten⁠ , the better-for-you candy brand built for people who still want to indulge. Michael shares how Rotten came to life after years of R&D, early manufacturing trials, and the realization that healthier candy didn’t need to look or feel “health-first” to win consumers. We walk through what it actually takes to build and...

In this episode, we sit down with Alec Jaffe, founder and CEO of Alec’s Ice Cream — the first certified regenerative, A2-dairy ice cream brand in the country. Alec walks us through what it actually takes to build a modern CPG brand inside one of the most operationally challenging categories: frozen foods. We cover everything from how he found (and rebuilt) a shut-down 4,000 sq. ft. ice cream facto...

This week, we sit down with Kristen Pumphrey and Tom Neuberger, co-owners of P.F. Candle Co., the California-born home fragrance brand known for its clean, modern scents and iconic amber jar candles. Kristen and Tom share the full story behind their 15-year journey — from learning to make candles at age 12 and selling early blends on Etsy, to navigating craft fairs, bootstrapping every step, and u...

This week, we sit down with  Kathryn Shaw , co-founder of  Spring & Mulberry , the chocolate brand redefining sweetness with through its use of whole foods. Kathryn shares the deeply personal story that sparked the company and how it led her to rethink indulgence completely. She walks us through the surprisingly complex journey from kitchen experiments to commercial chocolate production: searc...

This week, we sit down with Tara Hankinson and LeAnn Darland, the co-founders and co-CEOs of Talea Beer Co. — one of New York City’s fastest-growing and most beloved breweries. Tara and LeAnn share the winding paths that brought them from the Navy, Google, consulting, and the New York Times into the world of craft beer, and how a chance job interview led to forming Talea just three months after me...