From College Friends to Pickle Pioneers

0:00We started posting in October and then we launched in February and March and we were posting every single day, like the whole journey, picking branding, trying flavor iterations. And it really made people feel like they kind of had a seat at the table with us and people were really excited to be part of the community and support us once the product went live for that reason. You know, we do think of ourselves as kind of democratizing the process of like product development and business development. because we do include our audience and our community and everything we do. But then at the same time, you kind of have to be like, hmm, like, what is something that, you know, they would like and that they maybe don't know they would like?

0:43Welcome to the DTC Insider Podcast, where online business owners come to find actionable tips and tactics to grow their businesses. Now, here's your host, Brian Roizenthal.

1:02Hey, welcome to another episode of the TTC Insider Podcast. I'm Brian Rosen, your host. And today I sit here with Leah and Yasmin, both founders of Good Girl Snacks. Hey, Leah. Hey, Yasmin. Thanks for being here on the show. Thanks for having us. Thank you. We're excited to chat. Yes, my pleasure. Today I get to interview not only one, but two founders of a great company. So I was wondering, could you please tell the audience more about the brand? But most importantly, first, how you guys met? Yeah, kind of a funny story. So I grew up in Geneva, Switzerland, my whole life. And Leia was born there and lived there until she was about 10.

1:44And so we both, funnily enough, got admitted to the same college. And right before going, we had a friend in common who introduced us because he knew Leah from childhood and he went to school with me. And so we ended up meeting right before going to USC. And then we just became attached at the hip for all four years of college. And then, you know, up until now, we graduated like three years ago, two years ago. And when did you launch the company? So we graduated three years ago. We both went kind of our separate ways in terms of career. I was in a marketing and growth position at a tech startup.

2:22and then Yasaman was working in the art space. We felt super unfulfilled with our jobs. And so we started scrolling on TikTok on the job and we were huge foodies. Being Middle Eastern, food was always something that we grew up with. So obviously the algorithm knew that and all the videos we were seeing online were food related. And we started noticing a pattern that almost every other food video we were seeing was a pickle related video. Kind of similar to how in 2014, everyone was eating avocado toast out of nowhere everyone was eating pickles now and we looked at the aisle and it was super sleepy there was no flavor innovation no packaging innovation no one was organic um so we kind of started joking around about what it would be like to start a pickle company called hot girl pickles uh spoke to people in the industry people really pushed us to pursue the idea full-time so we did um we quit our jobs summer 2023 and then we launched the product end of February 2024 so like eight nine months to market from the day that we started and we started posting in public vlogging the whole journey of what it was like to start this company on TikTok and Instagram reels and everything kind of took off from there we went viral before launching we reformulated the product really got proof of concept in 2024 and 2025 has been kind of an introduction into retail so we're in erwan bristol farms go puff national we're about to be in central market and we have a couple more pretty big retail chains and then we also came out with two flavors originally and then just added a third to the line of products we have so what a journey so basically i wanted to see if i got something right you both quit your job even before you launched is it right yeah wow and what did your relatives you know friends family thought back then i feel like on my end they were definitely supportive i feel like friends were super supportive and they were excited for us obviously i feel like the cpg industry in america is very different to what it is internationally And so I think for family that lived in Europe, it was a bit more, I guess, of a difficult concept to grasp, but they were still supportive.

4:46You know, thankfully, I'm very lucky to have parents that are very supportive and believe in me. And so overall, it was pretty positive. Yeah, we both we both kind of had a positive experience. Also, we came out of college with, you know, flying colors, great educational experience and background. own. And so I think we had a lot of trust around us as well from the people around us that it wasn't just a random idea that we were pursuing. Although we got a lot of laughter around it. People thought it was kind of funny, but I'm glad we're proving ourselves out now. Yeah, I can relate. I used to have like a business partner for, he was my best friend for over 10 years.

5:25And yeah, we were laughing all the time. It was fun, you know, working together. And And yeah, I miss those days sometimes. So I want to ask, you know, you said that you spent more or less, you know, eight to nine months in the go-to-market strategy. Is that correct? Well, eight to nine months to build out the whole product, like working with our food side, doing the branding, et cetera. From ideation. Exactly. Okay. Right. And then, yeah. How do you go about that? You know, one thing you say, oh, I see a TikTok here and I want to launch this company. But how did you actually pull that off? We were working with two consultants pretty quickly.

6:02One of them was a food scientist and her partner was like more on the operational support. And so they were helping us bring the product to life. We already had a pretty good idea of what flavors we wanted to do. And so it was really easy to work with people to kind of make that happen. And then in parallel, at the same time, we were also working with a design team to create labels and branding for it. and we again had a very clear vision for what we wanted there so it was really easy to work with the team we found to get something done quickly and then at the same time we were also posting about all of this on social media so we were already building community and excitement around the product which made it possible for us to launch successfully very quick.

6:45You were posting before you launched? Yeah we post we started we started posting in October and then we launched in February and March and we were posting every single day, like the whole journey, picking branding, trying flavor iterations. And it really made people feel like they kind of had a seat at the table with us and people were really excited to be part of the community and support us once the product went live for that reason. Even though it's different product categories, I find a parallelism with what a brand called OBI did. I don't know if you know, OBI is O-B-V-I. It's a high figure brand company.

7:25I had the pleasure of meeting here. They build in public and they are the founders of Chill on This. It's a podcast plus communities. They do e-com events around the big events there in the US. So they do after parties, all stuff. So it's great, great people, you know, Ronak Shah and Ash Mawani, Akit Patel. And basically what they do and what they did in the beginning, they took like collagen powder, you know, they took collagen mainly. And they created a company around flavored collagen, but not just any flavor. They started asking people what they liked to see next. And over time, they created a community for them.

8:04It's a Facebook group. And till this day, I don't know how many, I don't know if it's 100 ,000 members or so they have. And it's a valuable place for them to interact with customers and to see what they want to see next. So in this case, I can see that parallelism between, you know, the products they have, plus the community side of things to shape your products. Yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah, I think it's interesting also with product development because you want to, you know, cater to what people want, but then at the same time, you want to stand out from what they know and what they do use on the daily.

8:39So, you know, for example, we had our community request a bread and butter pickle flavor, but no one was requesting, you know, bread and butter pickles sweetened with dates. That's something that we decided to add. And so I think it's a fine line between, you know, listening to your to your customers and, you know, think of ourselves as kind of democratizing the process of like product development and business development. Because we do include our audience and our community and everything we do. But then at the same time, you kind of have to be like, hmm, like what is something that, you know, they would like and that they maybe don't know they would like.

9:14I mean, there's a common saying, I think it was, it comes from Henry Ford. And he said, you know, if I asked people what they wanted to see next, they would have told me a faster horse, you know, instead of a car. So, yeah, I totally agree that being said, I think today that the best way to stand out and to do it in a lean way is to, you know, rely on your customers. customers but again you need to trust your gut your gut and in the end launch what you think that's best for the brand and probably from the options that you have sometimes you have more than one option in mind and then you uh define with their vote or something like that but yeah that's that's great another company i i can i sorry my brain goes sideways all the time but one one one brand that is doing you know flavor products and is doing great is called smacking sandflowers i don't know if you know the brand but they took some flower seeds and they turned them into flavored and they have a huge ecosystem i don't know how many like this it was like a huge um they have their own factory right now like huge place like yeah anyways so yeah i want to say that in case either you or those listening want to check them out because those two are been in building in public are you building in public by the way are you building in public or are you showing the behind the scenes yeah yeah we've been building in public since the like the first video we posted that was kind of like the whole point was for people to kind of see what we were doing behind the scenes from day zero up until now we're still posting every single day of the journey and continuing to build in public just so that people can follow the growth and want to continue supporting and put a face to the brand.

11:08We're not just a product. We're like two best friends that started this without knowing anything about the industry, which makes people also interested and invested in how we even did it. So we've always been very authentic and open still to this day. Are you both the face of the brand? Yeah, we separate out our roles, but we're both on camera. I mean, we are like the two people that are working on this company. So it makes sense that we're both on it. Like we are the story. So yeah, it's definitely a little weird sometimes because we like we've started getting stopped in the street and people like know who we are, which is kind of funny.

11:46Like we're the pickle girls. But yeah, we've had a great time doing it. And it's enabled us to connect with our community a lot more. So we always tell people who are starting a company, if they have the ability to be public and, you know, post every day, it's the best way to spend zero dollars on marketing. There's a debate around face and faceless brands, you know, and founder-led companies or founder-led content, basically. You know, I think that it is sad that you need to use your company size to your advantage. And the big guys, the big players are not willing to do some stuff that you probably need to be willing to do or are willing to do.

12:31So in this case, being the face of a brand, it's a luxury that those big companies don't have, right? So probably it's another way to stand out, build rapport with your customers and, you know, tell them more about your mission, your vision for a company and create some shared values with your audience. Yeah, I think also like we're our own demographic, like we kind of as founders, like represent exactly the type of people that we want to like market to. And so I think that makes that makes the brand more personable as well, because we know that most people that are watching our videos are girls that are kind of, you know, around our age bracket.

13:13and they're the ones that we're speaking to and targeting and so um i feel like it makes it makes it all the more like relatable and interesting for them to follow along how many pieces of content do you create every single week or every month um we post every day oh like depends on if we're filming multiple times a day or if it's pre-filmed content but there's like 30 to 31 pieces of content going up a month maybe even more if you're counting stories and then like photos on top of short form content um but yeah there's a lot well congrats it depends it depends like if if you know we're leaving town or if we have campaigns that need to go live then we'll pre-record them but But most of the time, it's like planned out earlier in the week what we're going to post that week.

14:12And then just so that we're staying relevant with trends and all that stuff. And then we kind of find times through the week to film and create the content. Do you record together or both like separate and together? Yeah, it depends. Like it depends on what we're doing, what the content is, what the idea is. but most of the time we're together. Or, you know, if we're doing a vlog, like I might start it off and then, you know, yeah, someone's like showing up at a random time in the video. It really just depends on the type of content that's going up that day. You know, in the audience, we have many fellow brand founders, some ahead of the journey, some behind you.

14:55And for those wondering if it's worth that, you know, the organic content creation, what could you tell them? It is 100 % worth it. It's the only way that we've been able to spend$0 on marketing as a small brand. If you aren't doing organic content creation, then that means that you're paying for your marketing, which gets really expensive really quick, especially as a small business. And let's talk about sales. What channels do you operate on mainly? Is it mainly the store, like the online store? Is it retail? What percentage of your business each of them represents? I feel like year one, it was definitely 90 % e-com and about 10 % retail.

15:37Just because we were starting out, we were trying to get proof of concept. And because we were building in public, we had built a community that I think obviously was way easier for them to purchase online from anywhere in the US rather than just a few retail locations. and then at the end of 2024 we started slowly trickling into a few like mom and pop shops kind of around LA and New York and then 2025 I would say we're probably like 80 % retail and 20 % online and you know we have like we're really building building out like a pretty strong like retail rollout strategy. And yeah, I think consumer behavior is that you're going to buy your groceries, you know, with everything else that you buy, or you're not necessarily going to like pull out a product online.

16:31It's great for first tries, but you're not necessarily going to get a ton of repeat purchases online. And then also because we are a heavy glass product, like just with the nature of what our product is, I think being on a shelf makes a lot more sense for us as a brand. You sell the same products in both channels? Yes. I'm asking because some companies, you know, again, they might sell some heavy products as well. So they sell a different version of the product. Like, I don't know, instead of the beverage, they sell that beverage in powder or so. If it's chocolate milk or something like that, for example.

17:10And some others use the DTC environment or the DTC channel as the lab. you know, to test stuff and they leave retail for the hero products that people know that love, they love, you know. So in this case, it's exactly the same, both retail and DDD. Yeah. I think with Pickles, it's a little trickier to do that. But yeah, we've always wanted to just keep our operations pretty simple and, you know, not have too many SKUs available and kind of confuse consumers. But it's been a good journey. And for us, it was really what proved the idea very well for us is obviously when we first started out, there was a lot of barriers to purchase.

17:54You know, like there's expensive shipping. We were shipping from the East Coast. So if you were buying from California, shipping was pretty expensive and we didn't really have the means to sort of subsidize part of the shipping. And so it was all on the customer. And then at the same time, because our first production round was so small, our prices were pretty high. And despite both of those and the fact that you usually don't buy pickles online, people were really obsessed with the product and were selling us out. And so to us, that was the biggest indicator that we were onto something and that if, you know, we worked on getting the product in people's hands on a shelf, that, you know, we'd be hopefully pretty successful doing that.

18:40What's it like for, you know, a young brand to get into retail? I mean, so early in the journey, what was something that probably you underestimated the first time you got into retail and said, oh, I didn't thought of this. And let's say for those brands listening that are looking into like getting into retail, what would you tell them as well? Like the ups, the downs? I mean, the ups are really that you get so many eyeballs on you. It's so easy to promote your product and then, you know, tell everyone like, hey, we're at this store, like go buy us. And, you know, it makes it also, yeah, it's just like, obviously people will see you on the shelf.

19:20And if you have a product that stands out, then, you know, it's even more helpful. I think the downs are obviously that it's really a volumes business. And the way you make money in this industry is really by selling a lot of product in a lot of stores. And so when you're starting out, I think it can feel kind of exciting because you're like, oh, my gosh, like I have my first retailer. And then, you know, you have distributor costs and then, you know, you're doing demos and then you have like in-store promotions and other sort of like trade spend that goes along with it. And you kind of realize that, okay, like I'm going to need to do, you know, a hundred times more than this to be able to see profitability or see like success, quote unquote.

20:03So I think that's probably the thing that we weren't fully expecting. But at the same time, we understood from the beginning when we started this business that CPG, specifically food and beverage, is a tough industry because margins are pretty small. You know, it's not like clothing or perfume or beauty where the margins are so big and with selling a few amount of products, like selling smaller quantities, you can still make a pretty good amount of money. And with Food InBev, obviously, it's really in the volume you sell. Especially this year, right? It wasn't like an easy year for brands, especially the DC channel.

20:41You know, the cost of query customer is high or higher than before. Meta ads is no longer working as it used to be, as it used to, sorry. And yeah, have you tried the Amazon or are you looking into it or not? We obviously would have loved to be on Amazon. But again, because we're trying to move off of e-com with the glass jars, we've decided not to go with Amazon just because we've experienced a lot of breakage. And it just makes more sense for people to buy a pickle jar in a store versus online. What would they buy online? I mean, we still have our product available online, but like most people are just going to the store to purchase it.

21:23Have you analyzed the jar material or it's not a thing? Well, for us, sustainability and being clean was really important to us, especially as we are targeting a younger demographic that seems to be very educated. And so we wanted to make sure that one, we were sustainable, avoiding microplastics, all that stuff. And with the retail expansion that we're, you know, following through now, it's going to be okay for us to continue using a glass jar. What about TikTok Shop? I mean, do we apply the same logic then for Amazon? Like because it's a new TikTok Shop or is it something else? Yeah, it's the same thing.

22:04We don't want to be shipping out a glass jar anymore. It's been a lot of headache. We also have custom shipping packaging. There's a lot of costs that go into shipping glass product. And so for that reason, it makes more economical sense for us to just sell our product wholesale, or at least to focus our efforts on wholesale. You have to start over. What would you do differently? That's a hard question. I feel like we would probably start with smaller cucumbers. Originally, we actually have a jar here, but we started with really big cucumbers and people had a lot of customer feedback about it.

22:47And we ended up switching to smaller cucumbers, which is now what we use, which they're a lot nicer to eat and it just creates like a easier snacking experience. So I wish we had started off with those instead of the larger ones, but we sold out of like 3 ,000 jars in like a little less than three months of the jars with the bigger cucumbers. So we got rid of them quite quickly and were able to reformulate quickly thereafter. Yeah, obviously hindsight is 2020. So looking back, I'm sure we could sit here and think of a million things that we would have done differently. But I think all in all, I wouldn't have done anything differently because even every mistake we've made was a huge learning lesson for us and led us to a place or pushed us in a direction that now feels right.

23:34So I would say, yeah, I would say I think we did our best considering that we were very new to the industry. One thing I wanted to ask you about retail that I forgot to ask you earlier is about the fact that, do you think that the fact that you have a strong organic presence helped in you know seducing you know retailers and of course customers as well is that a thing you know a hundred percent i think we were able to prove that we already had proof of concept number one and then number two we were able to show uh retailers that we can bring gen z into their doors, which that's the hardest consumer demographic to successfully bring in somewhere or to have them purchase something.

24:26We're very picky as a generation. I think retailers are really excited about that. And I think any brand with a quote following is exciting to have in a store. I mean, in the end, it means something. It means that people love what you have. I heard that people thought the first time they got into retail, they thought that that was the win getting into the shelves. But then they found that if they had no traction, the retailer wasn't going to take care of that for them. So they wanted to see brands that took care of traction. So in this case, having a following probably helped with that. Yeah, exactly.

25:04So what are your plans that you can tell the audience right now for the rest of the year? Probably for Q4 or something that you can tell the audience. Again, not about promotions or deals. Like, you know, again, we're talking to fellow founders. So probably they, it's like, oh, are they already, do they have something in mind for Black Friday, Saturday, Monday already? Are they planning 2026 or none of them? Yeah, we're planning retail for 2026 and sort of which retailers will be getting into. We have a lot of interesting stores and really great stores that we're super excited about that we're going to be starting rolling into even in the next couple of weeks, but really until the end of 2025.

25:50We also have, you know, new flavors in the pipeline, which are really exciting. We have new products. So we're super excited about those. And obviously, I think with, you know, as we keep growing, we're going to keep, you know, organizing fun events and, you know, be part of fun moments, whether it's, you know, for Halloween or, you know, the holidays. I think those are always really fun for our community. I say events. It's online events. who are offline or both? We do activations mostly, you know, in the states where we're, or cities where we're selling or that we know we have a big demographic based on our social media data and the people we interact with.

26:33And we like to activate there just so that we have more of a personal touch point with them so that they can try the product again, remind them that we're in store near them. And those usually don't cost too much too. So it's a good marketing tool for us. Why do you like doing that? What do you get out of those typically that you don't get otherwise? Well, we're activating a community in person, so they have a better touch point with us and the product that way. Yeah. I guess one thing we lose online is the lack of interaction, like live interaction with customers. you know their faces like the expression on their faces when they test the product what they say what they tell their friends right at that moment after they they try so probably being in real life with them is a valuable experience yeah i think online is obviously very convenient for people to purchase product online and i think it's it makes it accessible nationwide but at the end of the day especially with food and beverage you want to eat the product you want to try it before you buy it You want to like see it in person.

27:40You want to like hold it. And I think that's why these events are also very important for us and for our community. Well, this was great. I wanted to know if there's anything that I didn't ask you that you would like to mention before we go? I don't think so. I mean, we like to remind people that, you know, we're one of the only organic pickles on the shelf. we have a pretty clean ingredient label compared to other brands. Like we're very ingredient forward. And, you know, that paired with our flavor innovation and our labels, we're hoping that we can kind of become a household brand name for people.

28:22And then obviously the name of the brand is Good Girl Snacks. And so we're hoping to expand into other snacks after we kind of dominate the pickle aisle. in mind that you can tell the audience or is it a secret for now it's a little bit under wraps for now so you guys will just have to stay tuned yeah and you can follow them of course we'll include the social handle the website and everything else on our website the ddcinsider.com and of course there you will see the show notes you will see everything so if you're listening this far thank you first for listening to this or why not for watching this and you both thank you it was great meeting you and yeah looking forward to chatting soon as well thank you so much

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