881 Alysa Seeland: Founder & CEO of FOND Regenerative

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. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by LinkedIn Hiring Pro.

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2:19Kara Goldin:Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash Kara Golden. Terms and conditions apply. This message is a paid partnership with AT &T Business. Hey everyone, Kara here. Let's get real about those early days of building a business. Not the highlight reel, the actual day-to-day, the friction, trying to manage everything across time zones, across teams, across locations, and realizing how much depends on staying connected. I remember those days at Hint, a retailer call, an order, a decision, all of it. And you realize quickly, connection isn't a nice to have. It's the lifeblood of your business.

3:04Kara Goldin:As a founder, you don't want to think about your connectivity. You just need it to work every time. That's why AT &T Business matters. AT &T Business is the reliable provider for small business owners. And when you have that kind of reliability behind you, you can focus on what actually moves your business forward. Powered by AT &T Business, built to work. Get AT &T Business at business.att.com. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to The Cara Golden Show. There are founder stories, and then there are founder stories where the founder has emergency surgery, is told she may need another emergency surgery, and then decides to build the product she can't find.

3:53Kara Goldin:So today we have Elisa Sealand, who is the founder of an incredible brand called Fond Regenerative, also known as Fond. She is the founder of Fond Regenerative, a Texas-based company making verified regenerative bone broths, demi-gloss, and animal fats. And this is not one of those. I saw a white space in the market stories. This started because Elisa got very sick and wanted to solve her problem and then bring this to so many others, which she has. So it all started in 2015 when she sold her first jar at a local Texas farmers market, I understand, and today nationwide in many of the most wonderful stores across America.

4:47Kara Goldin:So the path, of course, is not always easy, is challenging. And by the way, she also has a lot of boys running around her house. I'll let her share a little bit more about that. So today, I'm super excited to have Elisa with us here today to talk all about this incredible brand that she has built called Fond. And Elisa, welcome to the Kara Golden Show. Super excited you're here. Thank you, Kara. Super excited to be here and grateful for the opportunity to share more about the story. Really, really excited. So for listeners who are just discovering Fond, how do you describe the company? Yes, Fond is we make artisanal bone broth and tallow just like you would at home, but we make it widely available.

5:40So we're really bringing farmer's market quality food back into the grocery store. And that's where I saw in my own health crisis and in the journey of so many other customers who would come to us, right, almost by the droves now, that need for real nourishing food that their body is craving and the difference that they see in their lives once they have that food. And for so many of us, it's sourcing. We don't know where to find. Not everyone can go to the farmer's market on a weekend and buy straight from their local farm, although we love that and we want you to do that first. For many people, that's not practical.

6:22Secondly, they don't have the time to simmer the bone broth or render the tallow. There are also smells and techniques associated with that that you may not know or may not want in your house. And so we're really trying to solve this gap of nutrient density that humans have relied on for centuries for the modern consumer. How can we make that accessible? How can we support regenerative farmers here in the U.S. as well while we do this? and so yeah it all goes back to that that founding story and wanting other people to have the same experience I did you mentioned needing that second surgery in three to six months here I am more than 13 years later and I I've never needed it this episode of the Kara Golden show is brought

7:09Kara Goldin:to you by Skylight I want to let you in on a little secret it's called Skylight if you're the person who somehow remembers everyone's appointments practices errands and to-do lists you know how exhausting that mental load can be. Skylight puts everything in one place with a digital calendar that syncs with Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Outlook, and more. You can organize events, grocery lists, and chores, assign a color to every family member, and the task feature helps kids build healthy routines and independence, whether that's homework, brushing their teeth, or getting chores done. And if you're not 100 % thrilled within four months, you can return it for a full refund.

7:54Kara Goldin:No questions asked. Families are better when they're working together. Right now, Skylight is offering our listeners$30 off their 15-inch calendars by going to myskylight.com slash Kara Golden. Go to myskylight.com slash Kara Golden for$30 off your 15-inch calendar. That's M-Y-S-K-Y-L-I-G-H-T dot com slash Kara Golden. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is sponsored by Wayfair. As the seasons change, I always start noticing the little things at home that I've been meaning to fix or refresh. For me, one of those was my home office. I wanted it to feel more finished and functional, and a beautiful gray weathered wood bookcase from Wayfair ended up completely changing the room.

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9:35Kara Goldin:For me, Wayfair made solving that home office problem simple. And I'd absolutely recommend it if you're furnishing a space, refreshing a home for fall, or just finally tackling something in your home that's been on your list for too long. Transform your space with pieces that hold up to real life. Join Wayfair Rewards today and get 5 % back on every purchase. Head to Wayfair.com or shop the Wayfair app for all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Wayfair. Every style, every home. Wayfair. Every style, every home. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by Rippling. Anyone who's ever operated a business knows that data isn't the problem anymore.

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11:14Kara Goldin:In seconds, you can see exactly what's behind your quota risk. But here's what I think is really powerful. Rippling AI doesn't stop at insights. It turns those insights into action by creating an automated recruiting workflow whenever it notices open sales roles and lagging time to fill are directly impacting quota attainment. And because permissions are automatically inherited and actions flow through your existing approval chains, all you have to do is review it and tap confirm to set the workflow in motion. Question answered, action taken, problem solved before it has the chance to happen. Ready to rule your business?

11:56Kara Goldin:Head to rippling.ai slash Kara Golden and get the only AI built to give you full visibility and take complex actions across your entire organization. That's r-i-p-p-l-i-n-g dot a-i slash Kara Golden. Sign up for exclusive access today. So, Elisa, this did not start as, you know, a white space in the market idea. It started with a health crisis. Can you talk a little bit more about those early days? Yes. So I was five months postpartum and knew something was wrong. I went to my doctor, went to a functional doctor. I had people tell me the same thing. We need you to get sicker before we know what's going on.

12:43And I didn't want to get sicker. I wanted to get better. And a little bit sicker was a lot sicker. I ended up having emergency surgery and hearing in the post-op, as we've discussed, the surgeons say, hey, you're going to have to have your gallbladder out in three to six months. Do you want to schedule it? And the moment of deciding not to schedule that declining was pivotal for me, I think, in so many ways. Also, as a founder, you get a lot of advice. You have a lot of people telling you things are going to be a certain way and you have to have the courage to really take that journey into your own hands and really say, thank you for your input, but I'm going to go a different direction.

13:24And so really found that bone broth spanned centuries and cultures, but it was missing from the modern diet. And I went on a five-week bone broth diet. No, it wasn't the only thing I consumed, but it was certainly the majority. And I felt better than I felt in my entire life, Kara. I mean, I didn't know people could feel like that. And so when you have an experience like this, you share it. And the two things I heard consistently were, well, it's too difficult to make it. I don't know where to buy the bones. Once I buy it, it takes too much time. And after all of that effort and energy, it still doesn't taste good.

13:57And I thought, well, mine tastes good. And I realized, right, my culinary artistry was really just used and bone broth is a blank canvas. It doesn't really taste like anything. And so I was able to really play and make delicious tonics is what we called them when we first launched them. It was broth that was intended to be sipped like coffee or tea and to be consumed by our customers only in that way. People would ask me, can I cook with this? And I would say, no, don't cook with it. You know, it's perfectly balanced for you to just sip it. And then, of course, you know, as we grew out of that early adopter group, I knew it wasn't wise to tell people not to use it in their cooking.

14:36But it was interesting how specific in the early days we wanted people to really see this as a beverage, as a tonic and almost an elixir, right, that could help them feel better again. So, and it's not woo-woo. I mean, a lot of the reasons people take peptides today or do peptide injections are a lot of the reasons that we want people to drink bone broth, right? It's a rich source of amino acids, the building block for every cell in the body and healthy fats help to protect the cell membrane. And so you have this beautiful balance, right? When you're eating this nutrient dense food from the most nutrient farms here in America.

15:14and it's been amazing to see how this transformed my life as one data point but like customer after customer coming to us saying after you know 11 years in business my body knew what to do with this product right it's been beautiful this episode of the cara golden show is brought to

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16:51Kara Goldin:This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by Skylight. I want to let you in on a little secret. It's called Skylight. If you're the person who somehow remembers everyone's appointments, practices, errands, and to-do lists, you know how exhausting that mental load can be. Skylight puts everything in one place with a digital calendar that syncs with Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Outlook, and more. You can organize events, grocery lists, and chores, assign a color to every family member, and the task feature helps kids build healthy routines and independence, whether that's homework, brushing their teeth, or getting chores done.

17:32Kara Goldin:And if you're not 100 % thrilled within four months, you can return it for a full refund. No questions asked. Families are better when they're working together. Right now, Skylight is offering our listeners$30 off their 15-inch calendars by going to myskylight.com slash Kara Golden. Go to myskylight.com slash Kara Golden for$30 off your 15-inch calendar. That's M-Y-S-K-Y-L-I-G-H-T dot com slash Kara Golden. So you did a five-week, as I was doing my research, look at bone broth fast, and your issue was digestive, but I think as you've alluded to, so much more. So what did you find was kind of the biggest changes that you saw?

18:29Kara Goldin:And obviously, this isn't what everyone sees, but what did you see during that five-week period that you just were so excited about? Yeah, you know, I like to say, Kara, that nutrient deficiencies caused my health crisis. So it makes sense that nutrient density solved it, right? I was a young professional working in Boston for the three years before I got pregnant. I probably ate a scone and a cappuccino for breakfast every single one of those days, maybe ate dinner. I mean, you know, just burning the candle at both ends in an early part of my career and loved that, I was a part of a startup. My health was the furthest thing from my mind, right?

19:12And just wanting to participate meaningfully in the world and that caught up with me, right? And so I was forced to pay attention to, oh, my body has needs and I can't live a high capacity life if I'm not fueling that. And so I've always had a lot of drive and ambition, always wanted to make a difference, But I found that nourishing myself first was going to be the cornerstone of being able to make any impact. And we see that in our customers' lives. You know, you asked what are some of the benefits that I saw from drinking the bone breath regularly. Joint pain was completely gone for me. This makes sense, right?

19:53It's a collagen-rich product. Hair, skin, teeth, nails helps with remineralizing that. But also one thing I didn't expect and that customers continue to talk to us about also is they visibly see cellulite on their body start to smooth out. Right. And so the body, it's really interesting because your body knows what you need. I don't know what you need. You may not even know what you need, but your body knows what you need. And so when you give it the nourishment to do its own function and we get out of the way and we aren't overloading ourselves with toxins or chemicals, it's beautiful what can happen.

20:36And so we have customers who have used Fawn in postpartum seasons. We've had customers who have used Fawn to take care of aging parents in hospice seasons. Right. And I love that we are really caring for people in every aspect of life. There's not a situation in which you don't need deep nourishment. Yeah, definitely. So you were you from Texas? I moved here. My husband got a job at Texas State University, and I was still working remotely for the startup at the time in Boston and really had never even been to a farmer's market. So Texas was what introduced me, especially in the Austin, San Antonio area where we started Fond.

21:20We did five farmers markets in three different cities every weekend for five years. Wow. And I didn't know anything other than starting this like a tech company. So my first thing was I'm going to get a group of early adopters. I'm going to test my product on them. I'm going to refine it. And then from there, we launched on HEB's shelves. And from there, we launched at Sprouts and then Whole Foods and then now Albertson. So you can see how we've grown the market of people that we appeal to. And there's something happening in the culture, too, where we're also turning to, hey, what is the source of inflammation?

21:59Why is chronic illness on the rise here in America? And what can we do to mitigate that?

22:04Kara Goldin:This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by Skylight. I want to let you in on a little secret. It's called Skylight. If you're the person who somehow remembers everyone's appointments, practices, errands, and to-do lists, you know how exhausting that mental load can be. Skylight puts everything in one place with a digital calendar that syncs with Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Outlook, and more. You can organize events, grocery lists, and chores, assign a color to every family member, and the task feature helps kids build healthy routines and independence, whether that's homework, brushing their teeth, or getting chores done.

22:44Kara Goldin:And if you're not 100 % thrilled within four months, you can return it for a full refund. No questions asked. Families are better when they're working together. Right now, Skylight is offering our listeners$30 off their 15-inch calendars by going to myskylight.com slash Kara Golden. Go to myskylight.com slash Kara Golden for$30 off your 15-inch calendar. That's M-Y-S-K-Y-L-I-G-H-T dot com slash Kara Golden. it. So when you were taking your product to the first farmer's market, how many SKUs did you have? Five. Five SKUs. We had, yeah, we had five. And it's funny, you know, as you grow and you add more SKUs and then you need to talk through SKU rationalization, four of the first five are still bestsellers today.

23:47It's really fascinating. We have a lot of, obviously now with the Ancestral Fat line and the Demi Gloss, we've got quite a few, but there have been some that we've created that, you know, have been seasonal releases that haven't made the list. But four of the five that were created during that time are still around in bestsellers today.

24:07Kara Goldin:Is there one that is like the runaway bestseller that is, you know, you mentioned Hint Blackberry. I mean, that for sure. And sometimes it's really hard because there's some that have better distribution than others. So that's why they're a runaway bestseller. But I'm curious. So of our flavored broths, for sure, the lemon and garlic is our bestseller. And then the turmeric and black pepper is a really close second. They kind of dance right up and down in the SKU ranking. And they both have distribution on our D2C, but also in the retail stores. in the fat line. It's really interesting. The tallow and the pork lard are really similar.

24:54The tallow definitely sells more in grocery stores, but on our website, the pork lard sells just as much as the tallow, which is just fascinating. Duck fat does really well on the website as well. And so as we look at our Fawn's audience is a little bit more culinary, right? They're healthy, but they're a little more culinary as well. We see more of the neck and neck sales. But yeah, then on the store shelves, the tallow for sure is the best seller among the fads.

25:23Kara Goldin:This episode of The Kara Golden Show is brought to you by Skylight. I want to let you in on a little secret. It's called Skylight. If you're the person who somehow remembers everyone's appointments, practices, errands, and to-do lists, you know how exhausting that mental load can be. skylight puts everything in one place with the digital calendar that syncs with google calendar apple calendar outlook and more you can organize events grocery lists and chores assign a color to every family member and the task feature helps kids build healthy routines and independence whether that's homework brushing their teeth or getting chores done and if you're not 100 % thrilled within four months, you can return it for a full refund.

26:09Kara Goldin:No questions asked. Families are better when they're working together. Right now, Skylight is offering our listeners$30 off their 15-inch calendars by going to myskylight.com slash Kara Golden. Go to myskylight.com slash Kara Golden for$30 off your 15-inch calendar. That's M-Y-S-K-Y-L-I-G-H-T dot com slash Kara Golden. So as you were starting this brand and seeing that it was not just going to be something that helped you and your family and your friends and the people that you met at the farmers markets, but you're scaling, you're getting it into stores, you're getting distribution. That's hard, right?

27:02Kara Goldin:It's a lot to found a company. Your husband joined you as well. And it's, you know, built around good, but that doesn't take away how hard it is, right? What were some of the biggest challenges actually launching it? Because there's always, I've talked to so many founders and wannabe founders over time. And, you know, it all sounds easy, but every stage has its moments, right, of growth. And I know you know what I mean. It's definitely, you know, it's challenging for sure. But what has been some of the bigger ones for you that you recall? Yeah, I think very, it almost felt like a quantum leap going from running farmers markets to owning our own manufacturing facility, manufacturing all of the bone broth, building that team, overseeing the distribution.