Her snack startup is outselling legacy food giants

0:00Leah Marcus:This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. Liam Marcus, welcome back to Female Founder World. Thanks for having me. You're the co-founder of Good Girl Snacks.

0:35Leah Marcus:We've had you on the show before. Yes. And you are best known for your viral Hot Girl Pickles product. And it has been, we decided like a year and a bit since you were last on. Which is crazy. And there's so much that has happened. I needed to get you back in the studio and just walk us through all of this growth that you've had. I'm going to rattle off a few things and then we're going to like deep dive on each of them.

0:56Female Founder World:Let's do it.

0:57Leah Marcus:Okay, you raised three million. Yes. you launched this new format they're like is it a sachet is that what you call it yeah they're like yes they're pouches grab and go pouches pouches grab and go which is like the snackable format which makes so much sense especially when you're like shipping dvc as well i'm sure you are about to roll out into 2 000 retail doors previously you're in 300 yeah and that's happening in like one month alone yeah so by the end of the year we'll be in 3.5k doors you're about to launch an ambassador program we've got some really interesting stuff to talk about around partnerships and also licensing a new part of the business that you are exploring that i think will be really interesting for consumer brand builders let's start with the

1:40Female Founder World:yeah what why was now the time to do it so we raised our round in march we raised it because we were about to launch these bad boys so obviously we needed the capital to sustain TikTok shop launch Amazon launch which is honestly so much more expensive than people think and then we were launching in these 3 ,000 doors which is also very expensive from the production lens but also from the marketing lens yeah so that was why we did it now and we're already looking towards the next round which is diabolical oh wow yeah have you hired like what's the team situation. Yes. So we have our head of ops who is absolutely amazing and she's made the business really what it is today.

2:25Female Founder World:She started in December and then last week we just hired an operational coordinator because we're getting so many POs, yay, that we needed someone to help process those. Amazing.

2:35Leah Marcus:Yes. All right. Launching these sachets, I have seen them, pouches, I have seen them everywhere dominating my feed. You just like own my algorithm. What was the launch strategy? How

2:46Female Founder World:did you own the internet when you launched these yeah so we just a little background on these it took us two years and a hundred iterations to take these into the world because we're one of the only pickled pouched products that have no brine and that use cornichons there's just a tiny bit of brine but like everyone else on the shelf either had to be refrigerated which like grab and go refrigerated doesn't make sense or they had so much brine in it that when you would open it would like splashing your face. So that part scientifically took a long time to figure out. And then we're really picky and we wanted the flavors to taste literally exactly the same as our jars.

3:28Female Founder World:So that took a while as well. So anyway, we had a long time to think about what our launch strategy would be to launch these. And we kind of had a multifaceted approach. So it was like pre-launch and everything we're going to do before the launch. So we decided very similarly to how other brands kind of delete their whole Instagram that we wanted to do something similar to kind of show everyone that something was coming. So we made everything mini on our Instagram. Profile picture, highlights, like everything we posted. And then within that, we were making, you know, like tiny little captions, like writing things to hint at what we were launching just to get people's attention.

4:07Female Founder World:And then we did our first ever highly produced video. So we did a teaser and an actual launch video and it was like 70s vibes like very suggestive um very like cliche I don't know it was very fun to do and it created a really big contrast between what we usually post and that obviously so it again made it feel like oh this is a big moment because it's not just like me with my phone it's actually like a whole camera crew and then we on launch day through a launch party with influencers in New York. So we got a ton of content right off the bat. We were able to see people trying the product day of launch, which was so special, although a little crazy.

4:49Female Founder World:I don't know that I'd do that again. Why would you do that again? Because day of launch is always so hectic, and having to plan an event out the same day is just like a little. Yeah, you could do it a little. Yeah, maybe like the next day. The next day, though, we got a Times Square billboard, and we walked around with like a giant version of our pouch, and we didn't think that that was going to be like the most viral thing we did like we thought our times square billboard was going to be so viral like people seeing us reacting to it no it was us walking around with a giant pouch and i think it's because people want to see something different and like for us obviously being on a times square billboard insane yeah for the rest of the internet they've probably seen like alex earl do it like a million people do it and so or they've seen you know people in like uh costumes of their product no one's done like the giant version of their product and like walking around in like cool outfits where do you get the giant pouch made our intern's mom surprised us it made it oh wow yeah big sleigh that's amazing yeah yeah but that was like the most viral thing and then obviously from now on we're gonna do a bunch of other events we're doing a big event in la which i would love to invite your community to if they want to join and yeah doing gifting PR boxes dinners all the things okay let's talk about retail yeah I'm curious about how this business this side of the business

6:11Leah Marcus:is growing because you launched direct to consumer which is not what most jarred products do but it worked well because you had such high demand and people love you and but I just think you're going to fly off shelves when you land in all these retail doors how have you been growing that business how are you thinking about that and how are you going to move that product off the shelf we're like we mentioned earlier launching in 3 000 doors by the end of the year the main reason for that is realistically like no one's buying food online unless it's like instacart you know so we

6:46Female Founder World:understand that our consumer it wants to shop us in a store and so priority for us was let's get into every store possible. We did it strategically though. Like we didn't just like run into, you know, a million national stores right off the bat. We wanted to learn about our consumer first in the areas where we knew we were already, you know, demanded. So like California, New York City, Texas, Arizona. And from that, we've learned so much that now we felt ready to like tackle the rest of the U.S. So that's kind of what we're doing. And with that, we launched these as well, because we wanted our product to feel accessible to people and for people to have a hot girl pickle at any point of their day.

7:32Female Founder World:So not only can you get a jar in store and like keep it in your fridge, but you can also get a grab and go pouch or a pack of them and then, you know, have one for a snack, throw one in your purse so not only did we want to be on the retail shelf but we also wanted you to you know put us anywhere on top of that it's been a learning experience for sure retail is scary

7:54Leah Marcus:are you thinking about launching any other products as in anything different to pickles

8:02Female Founder World:yes okay i'll be secretive about it the name is good girl snacks for a reason though yeah like we want to be gen z siete we want to have a collection of snacks that all make sense together and basically just replicate the playbook that we had for hot girl pickles to something else and then something else and then something else we are testing that out in partnerships first though so doing collabs with other food brands oh yeah i'm doing like a little like pickle flavored thing to test how we do in other categories before we go out and launch our own that's my product yeah

8:37Leah Marcus:when is that going to happen? September. Okay yeah it's going to be soon. You've also been working on rolling out an ambassador like is it a college ambassador program? Yes. Okay how are you mapping that out?

8:49Female Founder World:Okay so a few different ways. Where are the cities and the hubs where we're going to be in retailers and then where are like the it girls? We really think that these sorority girls have so much influence i mean we're already seeing you know like the bid videos and like the greek life videos start now that people are going back to school and like those videos have millions of views people are so intrigued by this persona and we want that persona to hold hot girl pickles everywhere and we want them to influence everyone on campus and so that's kind of how we worked towards it so we're going to have one at usc which we went to USC so that's always fun we're gonna have one at U of A and then we're gonna have a couple more um throughout the country like in Texas and things like that we're doing something at UGA because we're launching in a bunch of stores around those areas and so you know we want them to be doing really weird stuff with these pouches like we want them to be thrown around at tailgates we want people to be eating them hungover taking content of that and then you know their peers are seeing that on social media and then they're like oh I see it on instacart because it's on so i'm gonna buy it and kind of creating that rule of sevens almost

10:07Leah Marcus:how are you actually getting something like that off the ground let's say someone hasn't done an ambassador program before and like i want to i want to do this i want to go into these um sororities i want to have a presence there like how are you finding these girls okay so we had

10:21Female Founder World:two interns i had picked them initially once they applied because they went to these two schools And I knew that I wanted to do ambassador programs there. So they started as interns. They got really familiar with the brand. Now they're going out and telling me these are the girls we want to target because obviously they're in it. They know what's going on. And they basically brought them on. Like you just need one person and they'll tell you exactly how it's going on, the lay of the land. But we are using a platform called Home From College. Yes. to manage all of them and to find other ambassadors that are other schools where I didn't know

11:02Leah Marcus:someone so that's a fantastic tool that's such a good actual just like resource recommendation as well it's a really good platform before we started recording you're telling me that's something that you're exploring and it's still a maybe but you said licensing and I was like what do you mean licensing you're consuming like what do you mean can you talk me through what that strategy is Yes. My goal this month is to get every single one of you to switch your email marketing platform to OmniSend because you could save thousands of dollars a year on email marketing and still get all of the features that you need.

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13:28Female Founder World:so if you're chronically online you know that everyone is talking about pickles 24 7 yeah every you know cheese it has a pickle flavor goldfish has a pickle flavor like everyone has a pickle flavor and it's come to our attention that there's a lot of brands that want to use our brand equity on top of the pickle flavor trend to create a co-branded product at first I didn't really understand, like I didn't understand how to structure that type of deal because I've never done that before. And then I realized it's actually a huge business. So obviously we have a ton of followers. We're about to be in, you know, thousands of doors, hopefully soon become a household name.

14:14Female Founder World:What is the dollar value to having our brand on your product and you can just go out and create let's say like a Bloody Mary mix you can go out and take your own recipe like figure out how to get a pickle flavoring in there but just slap our brand on it obviously we would approve we would prefer that it uses our product but you know and then they basically pay you out monthly annually whatever the deal is and you could do a rev share or you could just do a licensing deal and so that's actually a really interesting revenue stream that i don't hear a lot of cpg founders talk about what other brands are doing this olipop in what way like they did like spongebob um like collabs or like collabs with cartoons yeah grillos does it a lot competitor hi they did it with va for like uh uh bloody mary they did it liquid iv for a pickle rehydration powder that's like something we're looking into very strongly yeah that's super interesting it's also so exciting because you you get to test how you do in different yes aisles yes and it keeps your brand fun and fresh because you're doing different things you're showing up in front of new demographics and you get to do more fun marketing

15:31Leah Marcus:as well so on that end it's also fun it hasn't been that long since i spoke to you last time it's been like a year and a bit but you seem like a bit more confident or something yeah like you're confident then but just like a bit more like self-assured or something yeah has it been a

15:44Female Founder World:really has it felt like a really big year yes yeah i think you also once you hire people and you have people under you yeah you need to show up in a different way and you need to like be more confident than you maybe would allow yourself to be when it's just you so i think that was a big one and then i also think now being in retail and really understanding the power we have on a shelf without doing any paid ads yet yes nothing yet is crazy and so now i'm like okay we really really really have something here yeah and yeah to anyone listening like confidence is not one day to the next you really build it out and i talk to so many founders on a day-to-day basis and they're like you know how do you have this confidence to raise money or to do this or to do this and I'm like literally time time and being delusional and really believing what you're doing and that's what we've been doing the last year I honestly think confidence is built by

16:46Leah Marcus:like this this loop of like getting out of your comfort zone achieving something or make all learning and doing it again and doing it again and doing it again and like slowly it spirals to

16:57Female Founder World:like building confidence yeah and just being humbled yeah that too yeah what surprised you of the last year in this growth trajectory that you're on? Supply chain is always a challenge for us. Forecasting is always a challenge for us because we get opportunities out of left field that are really hard to say no to. But if you don't have supply, don't have supply. Yes. So that's always a challenge for us. I will say that's like number one challenge probably for a lot of food and bev CPG brands, especially if you are using fresh raw ingredients. Yes. But everything is figureoutable. And we've kind of stood by that and say yes and figure it out.

17:33Female Founder World:is kind of the motto here are you gonna be raising more money yes secret yeah yeah i assumed yeah next year will be our biggest biggest year and we are going to start playing with marketing dollars truthfully i don't know how to market something to someone in the south or someone in a place i've never been to yeah or like an older generation for example so ads are something we're going to start playing with we're going to be on tiktok shop that's expensive you're not on shop yet no we're waiting for these bad boys oh wow now's the time yeah exactly so all that stuff is expensive and and you know it'll be time we also want to bring on a talent partner at one point so like have like a talent like a great equity situation i don't know we just want someone to have their own flavor and for that person to make a lot of sense yeah do you have anyone in mind

18:24Leah Marcus:obviously you're not going to tell me yeah we have we have a few people we've been chatting to which

18:29Female Founder World:is exciting but that's like also a new way of grow of growing the brand that we haven't really touched on it either that is expensive do the creators that you speak with all the talent the celebs or whoever that you speak with do they want equity yes which is why we are not even talking about exploring that until our next round yeah because we wanted a higher valuation by the time that we got there and we wanted to grow the brand to be in a lot of stores before we brought on a talent partner there's no point in bringing on a talent partner and being in like 500 doors because they're creating such a large halo effect on your brand that then the people that they're targeting will want to go to a store and buy your product and if you're not there then you're missing out

19:15Leah Marcus:so that was kind of our strategy going into it what are you learning about the process of finding that talent partner and negotiating it do you go to like agents are they brokers are you just dming people like how do you do this they usually come to us which is very lucky

19:33Female Founder World:and i will say we've been very picky because followers mean nothing it's really engagement yeah and you know there's people with so much influence and not a lot of followers and there's people with millions and millions and millions of followers which we had the experience of working with people like that in the past which has been amazing but they don't even convert one sale so doing a test before that's crazy yeah doing a test before is really important to us so we would want to do like you know a paid video see how it goes how many sales did you create things like that and then decide from then on but we'll see how that goes we don't know when that's gonna happen or what's gonna happen it makes sense for you guys yeah yeah for sure and i feel like there's so many people that fit in this like hot girl persona that would be really fun to bring into the brand and really help widen the net of like who sees our brand and who tries our brand

20:36Leah Marcus:so are there any resources that you can recommend for people who are looking at what you're doing at goodgirlsnacks and how you are up leveling as this leader any resources that people can go and check out just be like a little bit more like you it could be a book it could be an editing tool it could be something you're using on shopify

21:00Female Founder World:i honestly think the best thing i do is more of like a practice versus like a resource but it's like like something you can do yeah every day on your own and i go on a walk every single morning and i tell myself like a bunch of things i tell myself i'm confident i know what i'm doing i know this and it sounds really silly it's like affirmation no i love this it sounds really silly but i swear to god it's made me so confident yeah when we were raising around yas and i it was really hard this round to be honest like we were trying to figure out how to do it we raised a lot of money and at one point i just looked at her and i was like you know why we're not able to raise money because we don't sound confident enough and i i was like we need to sit there and we need to talk how these men are talking about their companies even though they're selling like half as much as we are or whatever and the way that we're speaking is oh i think we're gonna make this much money it's not oh we're gonna make this much money and so once we had that conversation i was like okay how am i gonna sound more confident if i'm not you know what i mean and so i would go on these walks and i would tell myself like this this this and this and then the first time i got on a call after that conversation we literally got them right away because we were speaking like this is what's gonna happen this is our brand i'm confident i'm this and that and i feel like once you really embody that you can literally do anything absolutely love this for you yeah I'm like that that was literally the only way forward I think that there is I don't think that you're alone in that I think a lot of um I don't want to over generalize but like a lot of young

22:48Leah Marcus:women who build brands off the back of like community and content and just knowing their customer because this all is so intuitive to you you have to like really step outside yourself and see what other brands are doing to be able to see the monetary value of what that is compared to brands that would do anything for like the sell-through that you're having and I do think that there is like a an epidemic of women who are not valuing that skill set that they have and how powerful that is in driving sales and building big, big businesses.

23:28Female Founder World:Yeah, 100%. And you're doing that without spending a dime. Yeah. Which is an amazing business strategy. Yeah.

23:35Leah Marcus:So yeah, I totally agree. And also no one can take that away from you, right? Yeah. It's like people can change what's working on MetaAds and you can lose that strategy or they can be like a privacy update or whatever and things can shift, which we saw happen in like 2017 or whatever. but the way that you're building a business which is you and your co-founder having this deep connection with the community truly understanding what works in terms of like brand resonance on the internet and virality and how to structure partnerships work with influencers like this is a superpower I think in the way that business is going to be built in the future and I just hope that yeah you're truly understanding the value of that because these big brands would kill to be able to have that yeah a hundred percent and and that goes for