815 Hannah Barnstable: Co-Founder & CEO of Seven Sundays

0:00Kara Goldin:I am unwilling to give up, but I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. You just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don't get knocked out. So your only choice should be, go focus on what you can control. Hi everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world's greatest leaders. We'll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can't wait to get started. Let's go. Running a small business is hard enough, and when you need funding, finding a lender you actually trust can feel overwhelming.

0:50Kara Goldin:Traditional banks often say no, and online, you're hit with confusing terms, high rates, and offers that don't exactly inspire confidence. Whether you're covering payroll, smoothing out cash flow, or investing in growth, you shouldn't have to navigate that alone. That's why I recommend Fundera, powered by NerdWallet. Fundera is a free, easy-to-use, small business marketplace that lets you compare real financing offers from trusted lenders, all in one place. What I love is that you don't need perfect credit to get started. No spam, no bait and switch, just personalized options that actually fit your business needs.

1:33Kara Goldin:I've used it, I love it, and I trust it. And here's the best part. For a limited time, when you visit nerdwallet.com slash Kara Golden and fill out the no obligation form, you'll get VIP treatment and talk with a real person who knows all the ins and outs of small business lending. Don't risk your business on unreliable lenders. Go to nerdwallet.com slash Kara Golden to find the funding you deserve. Fundera Inc. NMLS ID number 1240038. Thanks to HomeServe for sponsoring this episode. It's 2026 and owning a home is a huge milestone. Right up until something breaks, one minute everything's fine and the next you're facing a burst pipe, a dead water heater or an HVAC system that gives out in the middle of a heat wave.

2:34Kara Goldin:Home repairs don't check your calendar and they definitely don't check your bank account first. You insure your health, your car, even your phone, but what about the systems inside your home? Many homeowners are surprised to learn that regular insurance often doesn't cover everyday wear and tear, like plumbing failures, electrical issues, or heating and cooling breakdowns. That's where HomeServe comes in. HomeServe is like a subscription for your home. For as little as$4.99 a month, you can choose a plan that fits your needs and your budget. And when something covered goes wrong, Instead of scrambling to find a contractor, you just call their 24-7 hotline and start the repair process.

3:17Kara Goldin:It's that simple. If you've ever had a surprise home repair, you know how expensive it can get and how stressful it is trying to fix it fast. Honestly, if I had needed this, HomeServe is what I'd use. Having that kind of backup brings real peace of mind. They've been helping homeowners for over 20 years with a trusted national network of 2 ,600 local contractors with 4.5 million customers, a 4.8 out of 5 post-repair rating, and an A-plus BBB rating. They're the real deal. Help protect your home system and your wallet with HomeServe against covered repairs. Plans start at just$4.99 a month. Go to homeserve.com to find the plan that's right for you.

4:04Kara Goldin:That's homeserve.com. Not available everywhere. Most plans range between$4.99 to$11.99 a month your first year. Terms apply on covered repairs. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Golden Show. Have you ever walked down the cereal aisle and wondered how did breakfast become this processed? Sugary, preservative-filled, artificial everything, our next guest did just this. What started as a honeymoon discovery of real muesli. Am I pronouncing this right? Muesli. Yep. I haven't said that in a while. Muesli in New Zealand turned into a bold idea. What if breakfast could be made from 100 % real food again?

4:50Kara Goldin:And boy, am I glad that she had this realization. So Hannah Barnstable, co-founder and CEO of Seven Sundays, the certified B Corp brand. She and her husband started at a Minneapolis, love Minneapolis. She and I had a little talk about that right before coming on, but Minneapolis Farmer's Market after she left her investment banking career, woohoo, to flip the cereal aisle on its head. Since then, Seven Sundays has grown into one of the largest natural cereal brands in the U.S. Love, love, love everything about them. The taste, the upcycled ingredients, eliminating artificial additives, and so much better for people and for the planet.

5:38Kara Goldin:So today, I cannot wait to talk all about the founding story, leaving a stable career. I don't know if anything's really that stable anymore, but leaving a career that she is not, that wasn't doing what she is today. I'll leave it at that. And why breakfast is about more than just what's in the bowl. So Hannah, thank you so much for joining us today. So excited to meet you. I'm so glad to be here. And likewise, not every sale happens at the register. Before AT &T Business Wireless, checking out customers on our mobile POS systems took too long. Basically a staring contest where everyone loses.

6:15It's crazy what people will say during an awkward silence. Now transactions are done before the silence takes hold. That means I can focus on the task at hand and make an extra sale or two. Sometimes I do miss the bonding time. Sometimes. AT &T Business Wireless. Connecting changes everything.

6:34Kara Goldin:Running a small business is hard enough. And when you need funding, finding a lender you actually trust can feel overwhelming. Traditional banks often say no, and online, you're hit with confusing terms, high rates, and offers that don't exactly inspire confidence. Whether you're covering payroll, smoothing out cash flow, or investing in growth, you shouldn't have to navigate that alone. That's why I recommend Fundera, powered by NerdWallet. Fundera is a free, easy-to-use, small business marketplace that lets you compare real financing offers from trusted lenders, all in one place. What I love is that you don't need perfect credit to get started.

7:19Kara Goldin:No spam, no bait and switch, just personalized options that actually fit your business needs. I've used it, I love it, and I trust it. And here's the best part. For a limited time, when you visit nerdwallet.com slash Kara Golden and fill out the no obligation form, you'll get VIP treatment and talk with a real person who knows all the ins and outs of small business lending. Don't risk your business on unreliable lenders. Go to nerdwallet.com slash Kara Golden to find the funding you deserve. Fundera Inc. link NMLS ID number 1240038. Thanks to HomeServe for sponsoring this episode. It's 2026 and owning a home is a huge milestone.

8:15Kara Goldin:Right up until something breaks, one minute everything's fine, and the next you're facing a burst pipe, a dead water heater, or an HVAC system that gives out in the middle of a heat wave. Home repairs don't check your calendar, and they definitely don't check your bank account first. You insure your health, your car, even your phone, but what about the systems inside your home? Many homeowners are surprised to learn that regular insurance often doesn't cover everyday wear and tear, like plumbing failures, electrical issues, or heating and cooling breakdowns. That's where HomeServe comes in. HomeServe is like a subscription for your home.

8:55Kara Goldin:For as little as$4.99 a month, you can choose a plan that fits your needs and your budget. And when something covered goes wrong, instead of scrambling to find a contractor, you just call their 24-7 hotline and start the repair process. It's that simple. If you've ever had a surprise home repair, you know how expensive it can get and how stressful it is trying to fix it fast. Honestly, if I had needed this, HomeServe is what I'd use. Having that kind of backup brings real peace of mind. They've been helping homeowners for over 20 years with a trusted national network of 2 ,600 local contractors with 4.5 million customers, a 4.8 out of 5 post-repair rating, and an A plus BBB rating.

9:43Kara Goldin:They're the real deal. Help protect your home system and your wallet with HomeServe against covered repairs. Plans start at just$4.99 a month. Go to homeserve.com to find the plan that's right for you. That's homeserve.com. Not available everywhere. Most plans range between $4.99 to$1 ,199 a month your first year. Terms apply on covered repairs. So very, very excited. So seven Sundays for listeners just discovering the seven Sundays brand or maybe they had a bowl this morning and were wasn't really that familiar with the backstory or or really what the brand stood for let's start with the what the brand stands for what do you want people to know about seven sundays in the brand so i started the company and we can we can go back to the why but um as far as what the company stands for um i felt like there was a real disconnect between breakfast being a great way to start the day, one of the most important meals of the day, and what was being offered in a traditional grocery store breakfast aisle.

10:56And so the idea behind the brand, if you really boil it down, was to make Sunday-inspired breakfasts that bring people together.

11:05Kara Goldin:I love it. So hence the name. I always ask, where did the name come from? Yeah. And so Sunday tends to be at the time when I started the business, Brady and I were living in New York. We were working. He was an environmental consultant. I was in finance. And, you know, we were working the long hours and didn't feel like, you know, breakfast was as it used to be growing up, where you would take your time and like a Sunday morning, like actually prepare. Maybe you're making pancakes and you're spending time around the table and it's a proper mealtime. And while that's just unrealistic for most people, especially now with three kids, we did want to bring back that feeling of like Sunday inspired breakfast foods where you feel a little bit more intentional about what you're eating and maybe there's a together or connectedness aspect to what you're eating, which I felt was really, really lost in the breakfast aisle.

12:04Not every sale happens at the register. Before AT &T Business Wireless, checking out customers on our mobile POS systems took too long. Basically a staring contest where everyone loses. It's crazy what people will say during an awkward silence. Now transactions are done before the silence takes hold. That means I can focus on the task at hand and make an extra sale or two. Sometimes I do miss the bonding time. Sometimes. AT &T Business wireless. Connecting changes everything.

12:34Kara Goldin:Thanks to HomeServe for sponsoring this episode. It's 2026 and owning a home is a huge milestone. Right up until something breaks, one minute everything's fine, and the next you're facing a burst pipe, a dead water heater, or an HVAC system that gives out in the middle of a heat wave. Home repairs don't check your calendar and they definitely don't check your bank account first. You insure your health, your car, even your phone, but what about the systems inside your home? Many homeowners are surprised to learn that regular insurance often doesn't cover everyday wear and tear, like plumbing failures, electrical issues, or heating and cooling breakdowns.

13:18Kara Goldin:That's where HomeServe comes in. HomeServe is like a subscription for your home. For as little as$4.99 a month, you can choose a plan that fits your needs and your budget. And when something covered goes wrong, instead of scrambling to find a contractor, you just call their 24-7 hotline and start the repair process. It's that simple. If you've ever had a surprise home repair, you know how expensive it can get and how stressful it is trying to fix it fast. Honestly, if I had needed this, HomeServe is what I'd use. Having that kind of backup brings real peace of mind. They've been helping homeowners for over 20 years with a trusted national network of 2 ,600 local contractors with 4.5 million customers, a 4.8 out of five post-repair rating, and an A plus BBB rating.

14:11Kara Goldin:They're the real deal. Help protect your home system and your wallet with HomeServe against covered repairs. Plans start at just$4.99 a month, go to homeserve.com to find the plan that's right for you. That's homeserve.com. Not available everywhere. Most plans range between$4.99 to$11.99 a month your first year. Terms apply on covered repairs. Running a small business is hard enough. And when you need funding, finding a lender you actually trust can feel overwhelming. Traditional banks often say no, and online, you're hit with confusing terms, high rates, and offers that don't exactly inspire confidence.

14:53Kara Goldin:Whether you're covering payroll, smoothing out cash flow, or investing in growth, you shouldn't have to navigate that alone. That's why I recommend Fundera, powered by NerdWallet. Fundera is a free, easy-to-use, small business marketplace that lets you compare real financing offers from trusted lenders, all in one place. What I love is that you don't need perfect credit to get started. No spam, no bait and switch, just personalized options that actually fit your business needs. I've used it, I love it, and I trust it. And here's the best part. For a limited time, when you visit nerdwallet.com slash Kara Golden and fill out the no obligation form, you'll get VIP treatment and talk with a real person who knows all the ins and outs of small business lending.

15:48Kara Goldin:Don't risk your business on unreliable lenders. Go to nerdwallet.com slash Kara Golden to find the funding you deserve. Fundera Inc. NMLS ID number 1240038. Great. So I read that your honeymoon in New Zealand kind of sparked the original idea. Can you go back to that moment? Yes. So, you know, really, like you can appreciate as an entrepreneur, the idea really builds from way, way back, right? Like being a child in the 80s and 90s and having all the different flavored cereals growing up and the diet fats that really kind of screwed a lot of us up in the 90s, right? the fat-free diets and sugars and marketing to kids and all of that stuff really like built some foundation.

16:51And then being in finance, but working with food companies, a lot of my job was touring food plants. So with all of that background in mind, now we go to a time of our lives where Brady and I had just gotten married and we took a few weeks off to go backcountry camping in New Zealand. And on that trip, I think one of the things we, one of the conclusions we came to was that we wanted to feel more connection to our work, like we're starting our life together. We wanted to do something that was impactful, first and foremost. And so Seven Sundays Today is still very much a mission-driven company, all the way through to, we have a pretty strong focus on planet health and how food companies can impact that.

17:36So that idea started in New Zealand. How we landed with muesli and breakfast, also tied to New Zealand. Every morning we would wake up at, you know, a sheep farm turned bed and breakfast, and we would be served these beautiful bowls of muesli. And it was a type of cereal that I had never had before, Brady had never had before. And the way that it made us feel, They were all homemade cereals that kind of got us ready for the day. We loved it so much that we came back to New York City where we were living. And I just remember scouring every single grocery store looking for this product or something similar.

18:18And ultimately came up short. The few mueslis that I saw were like bottom shelf imported from another country. and like more importantly just if you spend time walking that aisle you know that was where I had my aha moment as I'm looking for this muesli experience that I had that you know I was a distance runner and so was Brady so what we ate was becoming more important to us in our 20s and the cereal aisle just completely fell up fell short for us for what we were looking for And so that was the moment, that entrepreneurial moment was in a cereal aisle thinking there is a disconnect here. There's an unmet demand for something better to start your day a better way.

19:01And so from there, I did whatever, you know, goes through all the emotional, that decision making process of like calling your boss and quitting and telling him you're starting this company and everybody telling you you're crazy. And there I went.

19:16Kara Goldin:Okay, so from the moment that you decided we're going to go and build Seven Sundays to actually getting that first product on the shelf, how long did that take? It was a good. So we decided to move back to Minnesota, mainly because living in New York and starting a company did not seem financially feasible. I don't think that it was. Like most entrepreneurs, we were gearing up to go several years without pay. So we moved back to Minnesota and I was able to reconnect with an old family friend who had a diner style restaurant in South Minneapolis. And so they would be open from 8 to 2 p.m. every day.

20:04And I said, hey, could I come in and use your commercial kitchen space? I'm going to try to mess around with some cereals. I'm going to apply for a slot at the farmer's market. I've got like a bike and a trailer and I'm going to I'm going to give this a go. and she was generous enough to allow me to use her kitchen space. She still worked. She now works for us back in the warehouse. Her name's Carrie. She's awesome. They sold their restaurant. And so that was how I started. I mean, it wasn't like I went out and raised a bunch of money and had this like super buttoned up business plan. I wanted to make food.

20:37I called and got to know like farmers in Minnesota who were growing oats and rolling oats on site. And they were dropping bags of oats off at my house in Minneapolis at six in the morning. And I really, I wanted to talk to people and share this food experience and these muesli recipes at that ground level. So that was probably all within six months of quitting my job. I was out there making muesli at my friend's kitchen, and then I was hustling it over to the farmer's market and displaying it. And then what happened next is a, you know this because you used to live in Minneapolis, but we have an incredible kind of local food community here.

21:18And in particular, there's a lot of small co-op grocery stores that are naturally focused and focused on buying local. And one of the buyers to one of those stores came to the farmer's market, tried my product and said, hey, would you ever like to sell it in the store? And so that first year, I was able to package up some product in my station wagon and actually deliver it to a store for the first time.

21:45Kara Goldin:Wild. And so that took, so from the, would you say it was like a year or six months or how long did it actually take? It was probably within that first year, I was delivering some product to stores. Yes. So, I mean, that's the beauty of food is the barrier to entry can be low. And you probably appreciate this. It's more of those next phases of growth that can be really challenging, right? Like building the distribution from there. Absolutely. So how many SKUs did you launch with? We had four different muesli cereals at the time. Yeah. And so I was pregnant with my first and I would just go to the stores.

22:30I started to sell to some other local chains and build some distribution up in that first year. And I would go to the stores very, very pregnant, and I would do demos and I would get people to try it. I don't know. I've probably done like a thousand different demos and events over the course of our history. But it was such a great way to connect with the consumer and just hear what they wanted and needed out of breakfast. And I think that was like validating, right? I was getting a lot of people who were really grateful. There wasn't anything like it. They were also fed up with options in the traditional cereal aisle.

23:05And so I spent a lot of time in those early years, like in stores, at events, tweaking recipes and just talking to people about, you know, what they wanted from breakfast or what was missing.

23:18Kara Goldin:It's amazing how when you engage with those, especially with the early consumers, not only possibly tweaking the recipe or slight variations on the brand, but I remember speaking with Hint to similarly consumers that had issues with type 2 diabetes, which at the time in 2005, no one was even talking about type 2 diabetes and why Hint would be such an incredible product for somebody who was facing this. So the brand Seven Sundays avoids refined sugars, artificial dyes, all kinds of yuck stuff. Was that a kind of a personal decision, a business decision, both? I mean, how did you decide exactly what would go in, what would not go in every product?

24:15That's a great question because there's lots of different ways to go about health food. And like you walk into Whole Foods, it's almost overwhelming, right? I'd say I've stuck to really not relying on food scientists, for example, to develop products, even as we've gotten into more like, I guess, more complicated products like a puff cereal and things like that. Really tried to avoid any sort of food science or flavor labs, things like that. I'm a huge foodie and that's why. Like I absolutely love food. My favorite places on earth are in my kitchen making food from scratch or in a grocery store, like meandering through the aisles.

24:59I love entertaining. I even love to forage. Like in the summer, you'll find me finding like wild grapes or blueberries up in northern Minnesota. So I have a real appreciation for the way that Mother Nature intended food to be for us, not only down to like actual soil level, but all the way through to when we share it together and how it makes us feel after we're done eating. So one of my guardrails that we just have never budged on is we develop our products in a kitchen using ingredients that we recognize. We've never even used a natural flavor. So if it's a fruity cereal, we're going to find, you know, freeze dried strawberry powders and maybe a little lemon extract and like things that are ingredients that people understand.

25:47And I think that it ultimately makes you feel better when you're eating foods, you know, that aren't lab created that are meant to have a certain taste. You know, if it's maple, it should be real maple syrup. That's a beautiful ingredient. Like the fake maple, not a big fan. Don't like how it makes me feel. So we've really, you know, held on to that guardrail as being one of our guiding principles. It's so easy to jump on the train of like, I don't know, 20 grams of protein, zero sugar, like high intensity, zero calorie sweeteners. And we've never done that. You mentioned no refined sugars. So one of the things we say is we sweeten our cereals with the trees and the bees.

26:25So we're using, we love maple syrup. We pull a lot of maple syrup out of Lutz in northern Minnesota, which is up against Lake Superior. And the trees up there create like a really lovely vanilla maple. We use a lot of dates to sweeten our cereals, honey. So I think those are the things we've hung on to just because I actually think it tastes better and makes us feel better.

26:49Kara Goldin:So you became the first upcycled cereal brand in the U.S. What does the word upcycled mean in practical terms for consumers? A lot of people will hear the word upcycled and sounds good, but what does it really mean? Yeah, I think a lot of consumers go to like the ugly fruit place, like, oh, it was a banana that would have been tossed because it was bruised. What we're doing, there's kind of a whole nother have to this. There's kind of the food waste or the bruised fruit or what you think about in your own home. But there's actually in the food industry in the U.S., lots of what we call byproduct waste, meaning there is a ingredient or a process that's taking place.

27:43There's a demand for something and that demand results in the waste of something else. And so I'll give you a great example. You know, oat milk is something most of us are really familiar with, especially if you are one who've tried to avoid dairy at some point in your life. When oat milk came out, it was kind of groundbreaking because you could actually make a latte with it. And it was creamy and sweet and oats are awesome. So as that demand went up, as a company that bought a lot of oats for our oatmeal and our granolas and our mueslis, we noticed that there was a major oat shortage. And it was in part due to climate change and fires in Canada.