Cob

0:00Jess Davidoff:Welcome to the Emerging Brands podcast. Sharing the stories behind brands you'll want to shop next. I'm your host, Kelly Bennett. I am a New York City-based brand strategist for CPG Food and Beverage Brands. In each episode, I'll take you behind the scenes of founders that are building better-for-you products and bringing them to market. Also, I talk to brand builders, retailers, industry experts, and tastemakers who help bring those cool products to your shopping cart. You will hear stories of real life founders, their launch strategies, and practical advice you could use to grow your own brand or simply discover what's next on shelf.

0:42Jess Davidoff:And the best part is you could shop all the brands featured on the show. This podcast is brought to you by Hummingbirds. Hummingbirds is the go-to platform built for creator-powered retail activations. They are connecting everyday creators with CPG brands to generate shelf-level awareness, drive in-store momentum, and generate authentic content in markets that matter the most. Go to hummingbirds.com for all the details and let them know I sent you. This podcast is brought to you by Glimpse. Glimpse is an AI-powered deduction management tool that disputes and recovers invalid deductions, winning brands thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours back to founders so that they can focus on what really matters most.

1:36Jess Davidoff:If you're a brand selling in retail, go to tryglimpse.com backslash trial for 30 days free and let them know I sent you.

1:47Novak Djokovic:Now let's dive into the new episode.

1:50Jess Davidoff:Hi everyone. Welcome back to a new episode of Emerging Brands Podcast with Kelly Bennett. Today I have Jess Davidoff of Cobb, which is a super cool emerging brand. They're doing corn-free popcorn. She's the founder and CEO. Jess, I'm so excited to talk with you and talk all things Cobb and what you're building. So thank Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.

2:18Novak Djokovic:Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited. It's honestly just so great to chat with you and talk everything Cobb because it's my favorite thing to talk about.

2:27Jess Davidoff:Oh, and it's a cool thing that you're doing. So for anyone who's not familiar yet with Cobb, can you give us the overview of what exactly it is? And then also, why did you want to create it?

2:40Novak Djokovic:Yeah. So Cobb is a line of European style foods that are both gluten free and corn free. And they're all made with an ancient super grain called sorghum. And our first product is corn free popcorn, which is made from pop sorghum, which looks just like popcorn. It's just a little smaller. But the impetus for creating Cobb really came from my two sons who are allergic to corn. Um, and when I discovered my older son's allergy, I went through a whole medical journey with him. He had lost all of his hair. His nails were peeling off. He had like crazy egg menstrualitis all over his body, was vomiting.

3:27Novak Djokovic:Yeah. And it was going on for a year. Nobody could figure it out. And I ultimately figured out that all of those issues were stemming from a corn allergy. And so when I discovered that, we went completely corn-free in my house. And I started making everything from scratch because there's over 1 ,800 corn derivatives in America. And it was impossible to feed him anything packaged or from a restaurant. So I was making everything myself. And my snack addiction is popcorn. And so I was like, I really miss it. So I went to an international grocery store in New York. And I bought all these grains. And I was like, let's just see what happens.

4:06Novak Djokovic:And so I started popping amaranth and teff and quinoa and sorghum. And most grains, when you pop them, they taste more like a bad rice cake. And then I found sorghum and it popped just like popcorn. And I was like hooked. So we made it all the time in my house for myself, for my kids. And then we started to serve it. And it was this joke. People were like freaking out. They're like, why are you serving popcorn when your kids are allergic to corn? And I was like, no, it's not popcorn. It's sorghum. And nobody had ever heard of it. And that was kind of the tipping point that gave me the idea that maybe I should try this out as a brand.

4:42Jess Davidoff:So inspiring also to hear that you, at the root of everything, are a mom on a mission to help your kids. I mean, that is also such a driver too as a founder, as an entrepreneur of like you genuinely had felt this pain point. Oh, yeah. And it's hard and really challenging when you have to really change how a whole household eats, but still want to have your favorite treats. Yeah. When you do land on something that really checks those boxes, I'm sure that was also a relief too that like, okay, we could have a really simple snack, but also I know that this is good for my kids. Exactly.

5:26Novak Djokovic:Yeah. And initially, when I had the idea to kind of pursue this as a business, I really thought that it would be kind of like a corn-free niche brand targeting people with corn sensitivities and corn allergies. But then I did a really small trial at local farmers markets in the Hamptons. And what was so interesting was what was resonating the most with people was sorghum. Everyone was just like so enamored with this grain. And they were like, wait a minute, sorghum naturally boosts GLP-1s like Ozempic. And it has prebiotic fiber and antioxidants and it has a lot of protein. They're like, why haven't I ever heard of this grain?

6:06Novak Djokovic:And how can I get more of it? So that's when the wheel started turning. And I was like, maybe instead of focusing ourselves as the corn-free brand, we should just double down on sorghum and talk about why people should be incorporating more sorghum into their diets because it's so good for you the same way people who aren't gluten-free still eat quinoa or farro you know right um you know you can incorporate other ancient grains into your diet just as a way to diversify um your food sources and so that's when we really started to double down on sorghum. And I just learned so much about, you know, its nutritional benefits, how good it is for the environment, and then also just how versatile it was as a food in terms of what we could really do with it and how we could extend the product line.

6:58Novak Djokovic:Incredible. What was your background prior to Cobb? So I've been an entrepreneur my entire career. I started my first business when I was 22. and really the focus of my initial decade of my career was in tech. So I built apps and a couple of them were acquired. And then my second decade of my career, I was a turnaround CEO for consumer and celebrity led brands. So I never worked in food, but I got just a ton of kind of generalist consumer experience in the kind of zero to 50 million revenue range for beauty, home goods, accessories, fashion, jewelry, swimwear, kind of the whole gamut. And so, yeah, so obviously have experience in running consumer brands, but the food brand is a whole new animal.

7:52Novak Djokovic:And it's so exciting to kind of learn something new and feel like that kind of

7:57Jess Davidoff:day one energy in a new industry. Right. No, but what a great resume that you bring to the table. but also new to CPG food and beverage space where you kind of have the best of both worlds of you have a great resume, but also it's a whole new industry in a sense that you get to have that excitement. So when was it that you said, okay, we did the trial run at the farmer's market. We got some really great feedback. I thought initially it was going to be more of this corn-free brand. Now we know it's more based on aging grains, sorghum in particular. What was those next steps? What have been those next steps of really getting the brand out there?

8:43Jess Davidoff:I know you just had a really cool raise.

8:46Novak Djokovic:I saw you in all the CPG news and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is such

8:50Jess Davidoff:perfect timing because she's coming on the podcast. I know. It's so exciting. Can you walk me through those bigger next steps that you took?

8:59Novak Djokovic:Yeah. So I ran our farmer's markets over the summer and it was great. We sold out what I thought was going to take us four months to sell it. We sold out in six weeks. It was like so much momentum, so much excitement about the brand. Some food influencers that were out in the Hamptons were posting about us, taking selfies at the farmer's market. And it was just so great. So that's when you know, I started to rethink the brand. So it was basically like August, September. And as I was rethinking it, one of the big components was how do we get the word out about sorghum in a much bigger way, considering I'm not a influencer, you know, I'm not a celebrity.

9:44Novak Djokovic:So my platform is small, but if this is a brand new ingredient, how can we go big with it? And so I started to think about who would be the right co-founder to bring on who would be really authentically aligned with what I wanted to do in terms of diet as well as motivation. And so Novak Djokovic came to me on a run. Like I was on a run and he just popped into my head like he's your co-founder. And I ended up coming back into my house and like drenched in sweat. I went run up to my husband's office and I was like I know who I need to bring on to the brand. And he was like whoo and I was like Novak Djokovic.

10:19Novak Djokovic:And he was like, I mean, that would be great, but like, how are we doing that?

10:23Jess Davidoff:And I was like, how are we doing this?

10:25Novak Djokovic:Yeah, like I'm going to figure it out. So I was able to get connected with his manager and pitched him on the idea. He loved it. And then pitched Novak. He was really on board. His nutrition team vetted everything, gave it the green light. And then I flew over to Europe to meet him and brought samples for him and his family. They loved everything. And then I woke up the next morning in the hotel to an email saying that he was coming on as my co-founder and wanted to lead our seed round with a million dollars. And it was just like, it was crazy. Yeah. So that was really just like, just so just like surreal.

11:02Novak Djokovic:It was just kind of like one of those things like thought in my head. It sounds like a movie. Yeah. It was very movie like, you know, like I didn't tell anyone, like nobody knew where I was, why I was going to Europe. people thought I was like getting kidnapped. They're like, this sounds really sketchy. An investor from Europe wants to invest in Gov? Like, why? Wow. Yeah. So it was very surreal, but really just galvanizing because he is just so unique in his diet. And, you know, if you follow him, he really talks extensively about how when he transformed his diet and realized his gluten sensitivity and his dairy sensitivity back in 2011 and eliminated those foods from his diet he had just a complete overhaul that impacted his performance his health his just overall well-being longevity everything um and yeah so I've always admired him and he also is someone who always eats who already eats ancient grains so it was a really authentic partnership so it wasn't like someone who's like, yeah, now all of a sudden I eat ancient grains.

12:10Novak Djokovic:Like he talks about it in podcasts and interviews. So, so yeah, so he's just been amazing. He's been so supportive and has that kind of just like, you know, 20 year vision of like, we want to be, you know, this in 20 years, which is great. And then, yeah, so that was when, you know, when he led the round, what I wanted to do is kind of spend a little bit of time before raising from outside investors, doing R &D so I could show investors like this is the next product we're going to launch. Right. I was going to ask about that. Yeah. So we spent kind of basically Q1 and Q2 doing tons of R &D on all the other things we could do with sorghum.

12:52Novak Djokovic:So we could really showcase samples of the future products while we were fundraising. And then I started to fundraise in the summer. And yeah, and then we closed on the full$5 million this, this, this fall. And we made the announcement on November 1. We went on pre order that same day. And then we literally just started shipping last week. Incredible. Crazy. Wow. I live for stories like this.

13:25Jess Davidoff:Truly. I love capturing these types of stories on the podcast because it just helps founders see that you may not know exactly how it's going to happen, but just taking those next steps and taking leaps and reaching out and you have no idea how it's going to land. Oh, yeah. You won't know until you genuinely put it all out there. And it sounds like that's exactly what you did.

13:51Novak Djokovic:Yeah. Yeah. And for me, I think like what I've learned over the years, both as a founder and then as a CEO who came into brands that kind of maybe like lost their way a little bit and needed to be, you know, guided towards a new path. Like, I think it's really important to kind of like take all the feedback that's coming in and not like be like, you know, averse to it. Because I think so many times founders are like, this is where I'm going. This is what I'm doing. This is that maybe you need to be open to like a different path. I think that's when you can really see like great things. Like if I was like tunnel vision, like no, we're the corn free brand.

14:32Novak Djokovic:Like this is what we're doing. I wouldn't have been open to like hearing all the feedback from people at my farmer's market booth like buzzing about sorghum and like think like, oh, well, yes, corn free is important to me because my two sons are allergic to corn and that's such an important component of my life. but most people don't understand like why corn isn't the best thing to eat but they are apt to try superfoods so just the same way people you know tried quinoa back in 2008 when obama kind of she she had it on her cleanse menu there were like two quinoa recipes in 2008 and then there was like this quinoa frenzy because everyone was like what's quinoa i need to buy quinoa oh i ate so much quinoa around 2008 2010 like that yeah oh yeah so it's like you have quinoa people eat acai bowls like people are definitely intrigued by new foods that have health benefits that hit on both taste as well as function um so that's when i was like wait a minute instead of marketing as like corn free corn free corn free it's like let's just highlight this amazing superfood that grows in America that's so good for the environment that's so good for you that happens to be super tasty that you should incorporate into your diet instead of being like the anti-corn brand and so

15:48Jess Davidoff:yeah that totally makes sense and I was curious and I was really genuinely eager to talk to you because I love nerding out with founders and especially someone with a marketing background like yourself I'm like oh yes this is going to be really good and I was curious how that like the corn-free positioning versus the ancient grain positioning and that absolutely makes sense and I think also a great piece of advice of putting your brand out there to get those early taste testers get that early feedback before doubling down to know exactly what your positioning

16:25Novak Djokovic:is going to be yeah I mean we did our trial out here like our beta test at the farmers markets and obviously that's way easier to do with a food brand, you know, at a farmer's market. But I would say like I don't ever want to launch anything ever again unless I'm at a farmer's market or like an artisan's market or something because people are so honest at farmer's market. Like it's Saturday morning. You are getting their thoughts. Right. They're up.

16:55Jess Davidoff:They're bright and early, you know, like they're –

16:57Novak Djokovic:And people just want to sit there and chit chat and tell you why everything you're doing is wrong and like just like let you have a piece of their mind and like tell you why they knew way more about, you know, food than you. And it's great. Like that is exact. And like I think some people are like they get like really kind of frustrated with people like that. That is the best thing because like you're never launching something on a website and getting people to like sit there and like talk or like write you like a 10 minute long email. Right. But at the farmer's market, like I was there every Saturday morning for four hours.

17:30Novak Djokovic:I was there Thursday nights and just talking to people, seeing like, oh, what flavors people are gravitating towards, what their like comments are, like what the issue is. Like I would test out different marketing hooks, you know, to see like what was luring people over to my booth. Like it was so good. Like I would highly recommend like anyone launching, even if you raise a lot of money, like start at a farmer's market because the data you get there is just invaluable.

17:55Jess Davidoff:So my next question for you with thinking of advice you would share to an emerging brand founder, if someone say at the farmer's market now and really wants to transition to CPG, I do also see, though, people kind of getting stuck in the wheel of farmer's markets. Yeah. right and they're like I can't they can't really then make the switch to CPG I love how you did it and framed it as a beta test yeah and then took a pause and then fully launched the CPG brand any advice for anyone in that transition or starting at the farmer's market and they're like I want to turn this into CPG but they're kind of in the rut of the day-to-day of the markets

18:37Novak Djokovic:Yeah. So for me, like the way I kind of looked at it was I looked at it as like a finite window. I said, okay, we're going to do one summer's worth of farmers markets and that's it. And we are going to just sell through however much we can in that window. I did not think that we would sell out in six weeks. But I was like, this is like we're one and done. Right. And it's just giving me data of is this something that people will actually buy? And which price point should I launch with all four flavors? Should I launch with only two flavors? And so just like I was looking at it as pure beta test data points.

19:17Novak Djokovic:So I did that. But also I didn't look at the farmer's market as something that was like supposed to be self-sustaining or revenue generating. It was purely just a market research study. Right. And if I made some money from it, great. But that was not the purpose. And so I think people like kind of quit their jobs and like start making money from the farmer's markets. And then you kind of get into that flywheel of like, oh, I need to make money from the farmer's market. So I would say like, if you, and look, there's beauty in being a farmer's market brand. Like you can make totally living so I think like the first piece of advice I would give founders is like define success for yourself because I think too often mainstream media will say success is selling

20:01Jess Davidoff:your company for a billion dollars you know right that's what everybody wants that's the press that

20:06Novak Djokovic:everyone gets poppy sells and sells and like that's the gold standard but if that's not important to you and what's important to you is like having every single day to like take care of your kids and like, you know, bring them to the farmer's market on the weekend and just sustain your lifestyle, like then do the farmer's market brand and don't even think about like transitioning into e-commerce and raising a venture round of funding. So I think like the first step is like, what is your definition of success? Ignore mainstream media, like you define it. If it is like building a humongous brand that's mission driven, that gets acquired or that becomes the next Kellogg's, then you're going to definitely need to like get out of the farmers markets.