Founder Feature: Elan Halpern & Kiki Couchman of Sourmilk

0:02My friends, the QR code revolution is coming. Are you still printing QR codes just to hope people scan them? What if every scan gave you first-party data, real-time insights, and conversions you can actually track? Meet Unicode, the platform that turns offline touchpoints into measurable, branded digital experiences. Whether it's on packaging, in-store signage, trade shows, or product demos, Unicode lets you design custom QR campaigns, change destinations in real time, and track every scan. We're talking branded QR codes that boost scan rates by 30%. No-code interactive pages you can launch in minutes and built-in analytics that finally make offline ROI not just guesswork.

0:42Plus, integrations with Slack, Canva, Meta, Google Ads, and more mean your workflows stay seamless. Trusted by marketers, rated 4.9 on G2, GDPR and SOC 2 compliant. And yes, there's 24-7 support. Don't just place a QR code, make it work. Scan the code on screen or visit us at unicode.com slash qrcpg. That links to the show notes. It's uniqode.com slash qrcpg.

1:24Fast forward to last year, Kiki and I are starting to think about what we want to do next. And we realized that this is actually potentially a pretty massive opportunity. You know, two thirds of Americans have gut health and digestive issues, and the vast majority of them are probably not going to or unwilling to take a pill or a powder or a supplement to actually heal those issues. But 92 % of American households consume yogurt. So what if we took this thing that people are already eating every single day and didn't ask them to change their habit or didn't ask them to make a modification in their diet, but just kind of swapped it for something that was equally as good, if not better, and had a tremendous impact on your gut health.

2:03Hey everybody, this is Caitlin Brooker, editor at Startup CPG. We are back with another founder feature. Today we're talking with Alon Halpern and Kiki Couchman, founders of Sour Milk, a Greek yogurt cultured with targeted probiotics instead of traditional yogurt bacteria. After Alon spent years tinkering with homemade yogurt to heal her own gut health issues, She and her Stanford roommate turned best friend Kiki quit their jobs in tech and private equity to build a brand that's been reshaping how New Yorkers buy yogurt. From hand delivering over 5 ,000 yogurts in brown paper bags to pivoting their entire brand name in just 14 days after receiving a cease and desist, they're building a loyal community before even hitting retail shelves.

2:47My gut is so ready for sour milk to expand beyond New York. Enjoy.

2:55Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast. This is Caitlin, and today I'm here with Alon Halpern and Kiki Couchman, founders of Sour Milk. Ladies, welcome to the show. Thanks for having us, Caitlin. How are you guys doing? I feel like there's always something going on in the sour milk world. Right now, you are at the Google offices taking a call with me. I'm like, oh, this is too cool. You're too cool for me. There's like a new flavor of the day. Yeah. For us. It's always different. Yeah. Today, the flavor is we were invited to be part of a VC residency and it's the kickoff day of the residency and it's here at Google's office.

3:34So we're sort of taking some time away from the cohort and recording this podcast with you. Well, I so appreciate you taking the time out of your very busy days. I am psyched to get into the world of sour milk. So for anybody who is out there and is not familiar with sour milk, the brand, I'm sure there are many people who are familiar with sour milk just in general. Kiki, can you tell us very succinctly what sour milk is? Yes. Sour milk is a Greek yogurt that's specifically designed for your gut. So we're taking the probiotics that you would find in a supplement, like a pill or a powder form, and actually culturing it in your yogurt.

4:10So you can eat the thing you love every day, plus 15 grams of protein, zero grams of added sugar, grass-fed organic dairy, and also heal your gut. That all sounds so good to me. I have to say, first time I met the two of you was at Fancy Food out in New York. And Patty, our head of marketing, was like, Caitlin, you got to try it because she had seen my videos. I'd been posting online. I'm like, why are there hundreds of containers of yogurt on the shelf and I cannot find a single organic vanilla, no sugar added Greek yogurt? Nowhere. Nobody's doing it. So I'm hoping that'll be something that I can get my hands on one day.

4:52So my big question for you is what makes sour milk different than all these other yogurts that are on the shelf? Yeah, just speaking to exactly what sour milk is, there are so many yogurts on the shelf that are made with bacteria. That's how you may turn milk into yogurt. And those bacteria are really good at making delicious yogurt. And so what's different about sour milk is we actually wanted to create a yogurt that can help support your gut and your health in addition to tasting delicious. So we're actually taking the most targeted probiotics and culturing it in your yogurt. So it's almost like a supplement every single morning.

5:28Plus, it tastes delicious and it can be your daily yogurt as well. That's interesting about the supplement aspect. I feel like we hear a lot about gut health and probiotics so much that sometimes it can be so overwhelming. I am interested in maybe a lawn you could possibly speak to this. What makes yogurt different from a supplement? Why do you not have to have supplement facts on your yogurt versus a supplement that you'd snag off of a shelf? Yeah, it's a great question. So ultimately, we are building a food product. We're building a yogurt that you're going to buy in the grocery store and it's going to sit in your fridge and you're going to eat it every single day.

6:06We're not building like a pill or a powder that you buy online or maybe buy at a vitamin shop or whatever that might look like. But it really comes down to like the way we've designed the product. So like Kiki said, there are around 10 ,000 different bacteria strains. And similar to how vitamins function, they all play different roles. So to be specific, some people know that you take vitamin D in the morning, you take magnesium at night, you take vitamin C when you're feeling sick or zinc. All of those vitamins are like generally household names that people are familiar with and they know that they play different roles in your health.

6:41Bacteria strains have the same thing. So there are a bunch of different bacteria strains. They all play different roles in your health. Some help you produce oxytocin. Some actually help stimulate GLP-1 production naturally in your microbiome. And so the algin rules, just no one knows the needs. Like you're not going to hear Streptococcus thermophilus being thrown around in a household, right? Definitely not out of my mouth. Exactly. Yeah. And so part of what we're trying to do here is take these bacteria that actually play really specific roles in your health and then put them into the food that you're eating every single day already.

7:16And so I think the big difference on that front is that we really just want this to be a yogurt that you wake up and want to eat every single day. And underneath, it just so happens to be your probiotic supplement as well. So we're working with normal nutrition panel facts, you know, when you flip over the label, those types of things. And so it's like the same thing that we're subject to all of the food type regulation rather than the supplement type regulation. All the exciting stuff, right? I am just fascinated by how much you know it feels like I'm talking to scientists. So before we get more into sour milk, I need to know about the two of you and your background.

7:54So maybe Kiki, you want to go first and tell me a little bit about your background? For sure. Well, I'll just start by saying we met in undergrad together. We are best friends. We've lived together. We've studied abroad together. We now spend literally like 90 % of our waking hours together. So we're starting to merge. We're starting to have hive mind. But I will start off. I grew up in California, so I am originally from Northern California. And actually, my dad grew up on a dairy farm, so dairy is not far away in my roots. And went on to Stanford, studied human biology. So not necessarily a scientist by trade, but have a deep passion for health and everything we put in our body and what it does to us.

8:36I graduated into the pandemic. We both did in 2020. And I ended up working at a private equity firm. It was something that I knew I could learn a lot of things from. And I saw the people around me and really admired their intellect and their rigor. And I ended up staying there for four and a half years until this January when I quit to build Sour Milk with Elan. And sort of through that process, when I was still working in private equity, I actually moved to New York as a change of pace, just a different place to be than the Bay Area. But actually, it's been so pivotal in actually starting Sour Milk and being able to spread the word is being here in New York City.

9:09I do feel like New York is the epicenter of CPG. Like I'm in the Boston area. There are certainly CPG brands around here, but it's minuscule compared to what you get when you're in New York. So definitely a change of pace. We talk about this all the time, but building in New York has been a huge advantage for us because, as you know, we're sort of everywhere all at once. And we literally can do that because we're in New York City. We couldn't do that in another city or any other state. So we can be on the Upper East Side doing a pickup and then 30 minutes later be in Williamsburg doing a pickup.

9:43And so you cover like all of New York in the same day in a way that you really couldn't do in any other city. So cool. I need to touch base with you again on that pickup language. But first, Alon, tell me a little bit about your background. Yeah. So like you said, we met at Stanford undergrad. I actually studied computer science there. And after graduating, went on to be a product manager at a B2B SaaS company for four and a half years, which was very fun. I joined when we were 10 people left and we were 250 people. And it was an absolute blast. But simultaneously, I've always had a really deep in-grade passion in health and health and wellness in general.

10:18and a couple of years ago I was facing a whole host of gut health issues myself. This manifested as like things that you would predict so like bloating after I was eating or like brain fog in the morning even if I didn't drink the night before. I had a bunch of like hormone imbalances as well which I learned was all tied to your gut and your microbiome and when I went to go investigate like how to actually heal my gut one of the things I learned was that the best way to do that is by consuming probiotics and so in my head I was like great I eat yogurt every single day. And I thought yogurt was probiotic and really good for my health.

10:49But when I dug into the science of all the yogurt I could find in the shelf, I learned that none of it is actually making an impact on your microbiome or your gut health. And so what I decided to do was rather than, you know, eat my yogurt and then order hundreds of dollars of supplements and do that to heal my gut, sort of take those two things and combine them. And so I designed a yogurt from the ground up that was first and foremost a probiotic supplement. So it had the right bacteria in the right quantity and then kind of figured out how to make it taste good. And was consuming that for myself, really like just trying to heal my own gut for about three years.

11:24This is while Kiki and I were living together. It's just, he was like subject to all of these experiments as well. And fast forward to last year, Kiki and I are starting to think about what we want to do next. And we realized that this is actually potentially a pretty massive opportunity. You know, two thirds of Americans have gut health and digestive issues. And the vast majority of them are probably not going to or unwilling to take a pill or powder or supplement meant to actually heal those issues. But 92 % of American households consume yogurt. So what if we took this thing that people are already eating every single day and didn't ask them to change their habit or didn't ask them to make a modification in their diet, but just kind of swapped it for something that was equally as good, if not better, and had a tremendous impact on your gut health.

12:06That's really like how sour milk started and what the sort of overall mission is. I am super curious how long it took you to start feeling or seeing a difference within yourself once you started making this yogurt at home. Yeah, that's a great question. So when I was making the early versions for myself, the quantities of bacteria and probiotics I was using was like super, super high. Really potent. Really potent. And happy to talk about that and how we iterated on that recipe. But because of that, I was feeling the effects pretty immediately. I think it was two weeks of eating it consistently was when I started to consistently feel better, which was really fascinating and kind of like stuck with it religiously ever since.

12:48But we iterated on that version of the product, I think, for a couple of reasons. One, because I wasn't optimizing for the thing to taste good. Like I was just it was my medicine. Like I wanted to eat yogurt every day, but it wasn't like this has to be amazing. It just has to do the trick. And as we build a product for mass market consumers, it has to taste good. It has to be a yogurt that people love and crave and want to eat. So that was something that we had to change and adjust. And then number two was like the dosing. So if you have gut health issues and, you know, that's a sliding scale.

13:20Some people have a semi messed up gut. Some people have really messed up. Some people have no problems at all. If you flood your gut with a lot of like good probiotics, it will also start to flush out some of the bad stuff. And that can have some like unwanted side effects, if you know what I mean. And I'm sure you've heard. No, please tell us. I'm going to hear all that. Yeah. So because of that, in our early recipe iterations, we realized that a lot of people might consume this product and then like have to run to the bathroom and be like, something's wrong. When in reality, that's actually a really positive thing because the good bacteria are kind of helping flush out some of the bad stuff.

13:57And so we decided to like go into a range that was slightly lower that actually enabled people to still have the effects, but not like in such an instant time frame. And so that was a lot of the iteration that we made on the product. And shout out to my girlfriend, Frankie, who was patient zero on all of those early test batches and was very patient with those. he was yeah I think this is so funny because I am sure there's probably something wrong with my gut I used to drink like Olipop because I liked the flavor and I remember I'd be like okay I'm drinking this because I like the flavor but now I need to go like off gas for eight hours away from anybody and like not be in public so I'm like I don't know what's fighting each other right now but if I could like get my gut right with yogurt which is also something I eat every morning too we'd be good how did you choose the right strains did you have to do some research on the right strains to pick and was this something that you were targeting for yourself alone pardon my french but people say karma is a bitch brain fog is that bitch like it is the worst thing in the world like especially after becoming a mom I don't recall ever having brain fog before in my life but now Now I will have it for like weeks at a time.

15:15And I'm almost two years postpartum. So if you can heal my brain fog with some sour milk, like we're back in business. Yeah, I mean, you should try it for sure. The way I went about choosing the bacteria was number one, it has to be probiotic, which literally like the definition of probiotic means a bacteria that benefits the host. Right. So like when consumed, it actually has tangible benefits for the host. And that in itself rules out a lot of bacteria that aren't really beneficial. Number two, it had to be able to survive in a food. So there's a lot of other bacteria like acromantia is another bacteria that actually doesn't survive very well in food products.

15:53And it can have positive benefits, but that also filters down, especially in a high pH environment like yogurt. It's pretty acidic, so it has to survive in that area. And then number three was bacteria that are quote unquote universally good, so to speak. And so we selected these bacteria that we know the vast, vast, vast majority, especially people in America, do not have enough of. It is incredibly difficult to have a really good gut in America. And so we handpicked these bacteria that we know are going to be beneficial for that. And even if you have enough of it and you added more, it still would be beneficial.

16:29So that's kind of how we went through that selection process. And then obviously there's a huge taste factor, like I said before. Like some bacteria we trialed with, we just like really didn't like the output of the yogurt that it produced. And so we ruled those out because taste was really important factor for us. Yes, taste is number one. I mean, your branding could be on point. Your packaging can be on point. Your messaging can be on point. But if the product doesn't taste good or it's not effective at the end of the day, then all of those things mean nothing. So I'm glad that you were tinkering and you're able to find this happy medium.

17:01I am very curious. I heard you talking about doing pickups. What is this secret language that you're using with regard to your yogurt? Well, we run a drug deal model here in New York City, but instead of drugs, it's sour milk yogurt. There's a few constraints on our product, and so I think that's sort of the number one defining thing about why we run this type of model. First is we want to try and get this product, I think above all, into people's hands as quick as possible. Most companies start by doing the D2C approach where, you know, they have an online wait list and they blast it with their website and now they can ship nationwide.

17:40And their early adopters can try it, whether they're in California, New York, Texas, Chicago, wherever it is in the U.S. We can't do that because we are refrigerated. So that's number one is there's no way for us to get our product to people unless it's literally hand to hand or it's in a retail store. So that's number one. Number two is, OK, great. Let's go to retail store. Actually, we have an eight week shelf life, just like other yogurt. And if a new brand pops into a retail store, A, it's hard to get into a retail store, but who's going to pick it up off the shelf? You know, that might happen, but we wanted to really bolster our data and ensure we had a group of loyal customers and a virtual line at the door before we were ever on any retail shop.

18:23So we can make sure we don't hit that expiration date and we can sell through our product as much as possible. And so that really resulted in how do we get this sour milk into everybody's hands of New York City as quick as possible and acquire as many customers along the way and create some noise and buzz while we do it. right? And so that's what we've been doing is sort of starting in June, we did our first production run at our co-man and we brought back, you know, 1 ,200 yogurts and we blasted our email list of over a thousand people who are all zip coded here in New York. We've been building in public on social media for the past eight months.

18:57And so we've been able to really gain traction in that way. And we sold out of 1 ,200 yogurts in two weeks by literally having people order online, choose a pickup location, and we met them there with a brown paper bag of sour milk yogurt inside. The brown paper bag is literally just the icing on the cake for me. You know, it was one of those things where you're like, how do we even give them this yogurt? You know, we were talking about that in the early iteration. We're like, let's just do a lunch bag. Black bag, yeah. It's like your little lunch bag. It's just the easiest way. And so we can we write people's names on it, too.

19:27Like, please. I love it. We call this like the starter group. Like these are our you know, there's like a double meaning there of like yogurt starter, bacteria culture. but also these are our starter early adopters and our loyal customers and so over the past two months we've been able to sell over 5 000 yogurts doing this hand-to-hand delivery and really prove out for ourselves like hey there's some real traction here we're both seeing customer retention and growth now people aren't just coming because they found us through social media they're coming because their friend loves our yogurt and told them to try it or they saw us on this other person's random account and now they're coming and so it sort of gives us the confidence but also the momentum to really move into retail when we're ready.

20:06Unbelievable. Honestly, like I am so impressed by that model. And I feel like if retailers are not already jumping at the opportunity to work with you, I think exactly what you've done now is going out, finding that data, getting that buy-in from customers. That is a testament in itself. So I know there's going to be retailers listening to this. So take notes, everybody. The other factor that I didn't say is the fact that, you know, we are the founders, but we're also the delivery men. And we're also, you know, the faces on social media and we're also the distributor, right? So like, it's one of those things where it's kind of underrated.

20:41Someone asked me like, oh, so you're, you know, hiring some hourly people to do these drops. No, no, no, we are the hourly people. We are the ones who are on the street corner and who are meeting every single, you know, discrete customer that comes our way. So, you know, we can tell the story and we can have those interactions and be super close to why people love our yogurt. And for what it's worth, like, I think we always say this, but there's a world of a difference walking into the grocery store and seeing a product on the shelf and being like, I met the founders of that product. I've been eating that yogurt all summer.

21:12I met them on a street corner and kind of have that story with them versus you walk into the grocery store and you see a product for the first time on the shelf. And maybe you're curious about what it is, but you'll probably just keep walking past it. And so that's sort of the thing that we're trying to create before we launch into retail stores is this like community base of thousands of people in New York who have been eating our yogurt all summer. It's like the classic you need to see something 10 times online or something before you can buy it right with brand marketing. We're taking that to a new level of like you have to have seen it online 10 times seen us in person 10 times at your gym and your run club and your local street corner and you need to have tasted us 10 times before he'll die us.

21:53So we're covering our bases. The model is so cool. It's so cool. I don't think anybody else can really have so much fun with their branding. And like you guys have had a smile on your face this entire time. I'm sure it's a lot of hard work, but just like you're saying, Alon, like that connection that you're able to make with the customer. And then if they do see it on the retail shelf, like be like, hell yeah, I want to pick this up. I got this for how much are you charging per gram or per ounce? I got this for X dollars in a brown paper bag two weeks ago. It's really funny to me. Really cool.

22:27And I will say, I do want to touch on your branding because I do remember seeing a little bit before about your prior brand name. I don't know if we're allowed to speak about it. I don't know any legalities around that. But you really came on my radar when you came out with the rebrand for Sour Milk because I was like, oh my God, like it sounds disgusting, but it looks so good. Like it stuck into my mind. It was just like such a ballsy approach and it's memorable. And your branding is so simple, but so beautiful. You're even wearing your blue color right now. It's like probably just like ingrained into your DNA.

23:09It's so good. Talk to me about that. What did that process look like? How did you land on the name? Tell me anything that you are allowed to tell me. Yeah. So we got a cease and desist and we decided to change our name within two weeks. You know, at first it felt like the floor was dropping out from under us. You know, we'd been building in public for six months with that previous name. And then we got a cease and desist. And it was like, oh, my goodness, we already know, you know, so many people already know us as, you know, our prior name. And also, sorry, one thing I'll add is this was like two days before we were about to put in an order of packaging for like 100 ,000 units.

23:43So it was like we had to make a decision. Yes. And ultimately, it was absolutely the right decision for so many reasons. I think first and foremost being brand equity. It dilutes a brand to have the same name no matter what, even if they're across categories. So in classic fashion of building in public, we decided, okay, let's take to our followers, let's take to our community, and let's make this a challenge for us and for them. because every single day we don't have a new name. Every day we are nameless. We lose out on brand equity, right? We're not building who we are. And so we put an end cap of 14 days.

24:17And, you know, I opened up my phone, got online and said, hey, this is happening. This is why we have 14 days to change our name. Now, that wasn't sort of a mandatory legal thing. It was just, like I said, we wanted to do this as quick as possible. And so those 14 days were like a firestorm. We got so much input. from everybody. And I think that was incredibly helpful for us to start thinking about things. But we couldn't walk down the street of New York, and New York is probably the worst place to do this, without thinking, why is that pizza shop called that pizza shop? Why is Google called Google?