She Couldn't Find a Clean Electrolyte Brand, So She Created One

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1:16Some people will get nervous if they're going into a category that has a ton of people in it already. But I think of that as actually there's product market fit. One thing that I saw that was an area for us to zoom into was the fact that there wasn't really anybody in retail doing a clean approach to hydration. You see clean cookies, you see clean cottage cheese, protein bars, all of it. And that is just a signal that consumers are demanding more transparency around their ingredients. natural flavors lack so much transparency into what actually goes into the flavor, which is wild to me when the nutritional facts label is so scrutinized.

1:57To me, I wanted to make a product that I felt good giving to my entire family that also tasted like food. So it's very important to me to just have a food-based product. Hey everybody, this is Caitlin Bricker, managing editor at Startup CPG. We are back with another founder feature. Today I'm sitting down with Danielle Nuss, founder of Short Story, a clean electrolyte mix made with organic fruit powder and naturally sourced minerals, and notably zero natural flavors. Danielle is a mom of two boys working full-time in tech who started making electrolytes at home during her second pregnancy when she couldn't find anything clean on shelf.

2:37She launched at a Denver farmer's market, sold through her first production run and is now heading toward retail. Danielle is also a 2026 Shelfie Award winner, a small detail that she had no idea about at the time of recording, but I did. And we're diving into why natural flavors lack transparency, how the lack of regulation around natural is actually scary, and what it looks like building a CPG brand in the seams of your life. We hear from founders on this podcast every week. If you're a brand and want to get new opportunities right in your inbox, text CPG to 833-605-7002. That's 833-605-7002 and we'll get you hooked up.

3:21As always, enjoy. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast. This is Caitlin and today I'm here with Danielle Nuss, founder of Short Story. Danielle, how you doing? Hi Caitlin, I'm so excited to be here. I'm very excited to have you here. I feel like right now maybe you are feeling the same. There is an influx of natural electrolyte brands hitting the market and you were one of the first that came onto my radar. So I'm excited to talk all things short story and learn more about your story. Amazing. Yeah. Before we get into that, can you tell everybody what short story is? Yeah, so Short Story is an electrolyte mix, and it's made with very simple ingredients.

4:06It's just organic fruit powder and naturally sourced minerals. Perfect. There it is. Can you show everybody your package? Kayleigh, go. Perfect. I got it right here. I'm like, also, should I be bleeped out now that I just asked you to show everybody your package? Can you show everyone your product? Here's my product. There we go. I love the branding. I love the name. I love the front of the package. Can you read it for us and what it says? Yeah, so it's a daily hydration and then we put the ingredients on the front. It's lemon, coconut water, sea salt, magnesium, monk fruit, the end. A little plan short story there.

4:45I love that so much. I really do. Where did you come up with the idea of the name for short story. So coming up with a name for the brand, I actually feel like that was one of the hardest things that we had to do because so much falls out of the name that you decide to go with. There's visuals, there's taglines. I kept thinking about how will the product stand on shelf and communicate what is inside without me? Because I could talk about it all day, but I'm not going to be in stores. And so another thing too, a lot of names are taken. So if you're ever trying to trademark something, I would say like always don't fall in love with something right away, but just kind of do a broad search, look for ideas and always run it through the USPTO and just kind of see what's out there.

5:35Fun fact, electrolytes fall into the same category as beer. And there are so many fun breweries and beer names out there. So like there are a lot taken. Yeah, I didn't know if you knew that. I did not know that. Yeah. So we did a lot of brainstorming initially with the branding and there were a few requirements. One was that I wanted the name to be pronounceable and recognizable. Didn't want it to be made up. And then two, I wanted it to contrast a lot of what is on shelf today. So a lot of the hydration products in the space, they're actually made for recovery. So you see names like Cure, Unwell, or liquid IV.

6:13And they're there to help you during times where you need to replenish a ton of sodium. They're more of a moment in time situation than our product is positioned for daily hydration. So I wanted it to kind of contrast what was on shelf. But then also our ingredients and our simplicity is really part of why we are different than what you see out there. And so I wanted a name that could help communicate that. I love the word story too. I have two little boys. So we say, We're going to read our stories. We say story all the time, all day. So I just love that word. And we started circling around some literary terms.

6:47And I love books. And we just fall into words with story, short story. And then you kind of get those moments of it clicking. And I could start to see the visuals. I could start to see storytelling. I could see how socials could start going. And then I also really wanted a name that had legs, meaning we're starting with hydration. and that's all we may ever do. We may just have a ton of flavors, but I wanted something that could scale past it if we decided to do that because we wanted to make a clean product, but we could do so many things with that too. So I wanted it to just not even have hydration in the name or talk about anything around electrolytes, just have a brand that felt like a brand that could scale and be memorable too.

7:31I think you're doing a great job with that because I feel like I see a lot of iterations for brands, especially new and emerging brands, brands that are just hitting the market where I can say to myself and the brand can say to themselves, we know that this needs a little bit of work. We're not there yet. I think your brand is a really good example of a product that I've seen where I think this actually doesn't need any changes at all. It's a very strong product, even as a single SKU, and you get everything you need to know right on the front of the package. Hate to say it, but it's very similar to the RX bar approach where they weren't disclosing everything on the front of the package.

8:08Oh my gosh, I just learned that. Whoa, yeah. But I really like that approach because everything's right there for you. You get the brand name, you get the branding, you get the ingredients, and then you really don't need to know much else. Exactly. But you can flip it around if you want to know more. Exactly. It's a pretty cool approach. We do have a lot of people flip over the package at the farmer's market and they say, oh, that is it. And I'm like, yeah, I put it on the front. You don't need to flip it over anymore. Do you know if there are any, because I don't know, So I figure I'll ask you, are there any regulations about what you can't put on the front of the package versus what needs to be on the back of the package?

8:43So we did a lot of research into organic certification and the words you can use for organic. We are in the middle of getting our organic certification. But that is something that you cannot put on the front of pack and give off the appearance that you are organic certified until that is true. You are able to, in the ingredient section, disclose that you have organic ingredients. So we have organic coconut water, for example. But that was something that we were very wary of. I'm not sure if there's any other regulations besides, well, looking at all of your claims, you do want to make sure that you aren't claiming anything that isn't true.

9:20So I worked with my bestie, Claude, on that a lot to make sure that I wasn't saying anything that wasn't true. but typically you would work with a lawyer on that too. But for our course run, we were kind of shot for cash. So Claude helped there. I feel like you're also in a pretty good position because electrolytes are ubiquitous. They are at gas stations, grocery stores, specialty stores, gyms, they're everywhere. So people, I think, get the idea of electrolytes. They might not know all the health benefits but I think they get the point. So it kind of helps you in the sense that you don't have to say, it could do this for you because people already think it's going to do something for them.

10:01Yes, exactly. And that's actually where we saw a lot of opportunity. So some people will get nervous if they're going into a category that has a ton of people in it already. But I think of that as actually there's product market fit. And one thing that I saw that was an area for us to zoom into was the fact that there wasn't really anybody in retail doing a clean approach to hydration. And you see it all over the place. You see clean cookies. You see clean cottage cheese, protein bars, all of it. And that is just a signal that consumers are demanding more transparency around their ingredients.

10:38And so I just kind of looked at that and I was like, I feel like there's a little bit of white space for us to go after. And there's not a ton of education that comes along with what an electrolyte can do for you. People know that they are good for you and they need them. There is some education that we have to do with our product, but not from like the entire category. Yeah, it definitely gives you a leg up, I think. And you do raise a very good point about the space and the white space, because I don't think that I have personally seen an electrolyte on shelf in a store that does not have natural flavors in it.

11:11Yours does not have natural flavors in it, which is huge. I mean, the conversation around natural flavors is everywhere right now and people being anti or pro, depending on who you ask. But all of these cleaner electrolyte brands that I've seen hitting the market, I've never seen on shelf before. They are all DTC. And it is a very interesting thing to see because I think it says a lot about consumer education and retailer education, too. I've said it before on the podcast, but I think Sprouts is really leading the way when it comes to the conversation on natural flavors. because they are the only one that I've seen having the conversation publicly.

11:48So I need to know from you, how did short story even start? And then tell us why you decided to omit natural flavors from your products. Yeah, so short story started when I was pregnant with my second son. And I actually learned electrolytes were really good for me to be drinking while I was pregnant. I started drinking them every day. And I didn't have my fingers swell up this time. I did with the first one, like around seven months, I had to take all my rings off and I love my rings. So I was sad about that. But this time around, I wore my rings all pregnancy. I just felt better. And I was like, Oh, actually, they're amazing.

12:24I love them. I'm drinking them every day, part of my daily ritual. And then when I had my son, I actually flipped over the package. And I looked at what I was drinking. And I was like, what is this? It was a really long list of ingredients. I could hardly recognize anything on the package compounded with my three year old son asking for a sip of what I was drinking. And I was like, I don't actually know if this is okay for you to drink. And that is the moment in time where I said, well, let me go to the store and see if I can find some organic electrolytes. I went to literally every natural grocery store around me looking and they all had the same set of products.

13:00And I was kind of confused because electrolytes are in our food and they're in natural minerals. So I was like, how is there not an organic electrolyte. And I looked online and I found maybe one, but it had stevia. I'm not a stevia girly. So I couldn't really find what I need. And so I started just making my own at home. I bought coconut water powder, lemon powder, and then I was grinding salt into it. I found some ratios and I was just making it at home. And honestly, that was kind of it for a while. But then I work in tech during my day job and I feel like it was February, 2025. LLMs came out, Chattachapiti came out.

13:37And I started seeing the power that these LLMs could help with productivity and research in my day job. And then this idea came into my head again. And I said, wait, why isn't there anything on shelf in a clean, organic space? And I started looking into it. And I have always wanted to start a company. I'm just kind of a builder type of person. My husband will tell you, I have so many ideas for businesses. I'm throwing them out left and right. We've done a few. But this one, I just really started digging into the opportunity, who was on shelf, if anybody was really doing this. And the answer was there were a couple DTC brands, but nobody really in the retail space doing this.

14:21So we started digging in and I just said YOLO because at the same time, there was this perception that AI is coming for your tech job. You're going to be out of a job in a year. And I was like, well, you know, AI can't taste things yet. So let me make something physical. That's so scary. I know. But let me make something that is physical. And it kind of just snowballed into short story today. And there are actually quite a few reasons why we didn't include natural flavors in the product. One being that natural flavors lack so much transparency into what actually goes into the flavor, which is wild to me when the nutritional facts label is so scrutinized.

15:03I actually don't understand how it is okay that you can just have effectively a category on your label of saying there's flavoring here. And there's no way to know what's inside. A lot of brands don't even know what is composing their natural flavors because it's proprietary to the flavor house. And to me, I wanted to make a product that I felt good giving to my entire family that also tasted like food. I don't love all this flavoring we're adding to all these products because it starts to just feel very monotonous and food tastes like there's tartness, there's roundness to it. You don't get that with the flavor.

15:41So it's very important to me to just have a food based product. I think what you're saying rings true so heavily for me and probably so heavily for other moms and other conscious consumers, if you will. I considered myself to be a pretty clean eater and I got my start in retail as a body care buyer and a department lead so I was very familiar with fragrances in body care products they give me headaches I had a fragrance free wedding like the whole deal we use mostly unscented things in our house try to stay away from essential oils even just because we're just so sensitive to it I say we but it's me and I probably made my husband and daughter sensitive to it because of all the lack of sense.

16:23But I have this moment where I was talking to my friend Melissa and she was looking at the seltzer that I was drinking. We were all like saying what we were drinking. And I was drinking like a Whole Foods store brand. I think it was like a ginger seltzer. And I loved them. And she was like, oh, yeah, like I stick to my spinger. If that's a hill that I'll die on, it's like natural flavors. I was like, well, tell me more about this. And she got into it. And she was talking about how there are so many chemicals and natural flavors and you don't know what you're getting. And I was like, A, I felt like a dumbass because here I am talking so much about fragrances and how much we don't know about what's in them.

17:00And then B, here I am just like throwing back naturally flavored seltzers every day. And God knows what else, probably everything else I was eating too. So I started personally like peeling back the layers on that and looking at all the stuff we had in our cabinets. It's taken me back to like 2012 me looking at all the ingredients on body care and household products. I'm like, wow, it really is in everything. And I don't even know what I'm eating or drinking. My daughter just recently, our philosophy now in our household is we really try to stay away from the natural flavors, especially for the things we're eating daily and drinking daily.

17:39Of course, we're going to have a treat here and there. And you don't always know what's in your stuff. But I have found myself getting more sensitive to the sense of the natural flavors. My daughter had this, it was like a mini muffin and it was a blueberry mini muffin. The scent of blueberry coming out of the package. I was like, you are not eating that. Like, what is that? It was like stuck in my nose. I could not believe it. And now I really do feel like they are the fragrances of food. Right. And it's a crazy, crazy thing. Yeah. We aren't perfect either, but I literally will look, I read every label if I'm unfamiliar to the brand and I'll put it back if it has natural flavors, because there's typically an alternative that doesn't.

18:23Correct. And if not, hey, white space, you should start reading labels. Absolutely. Yeah. There's a time and a place, I would say, for a flavor. Like if I'm going to have a Jolly Ranger, I'm going to have blue one. Absolutely. Because I love blue one. I think it's funny you get a blue tongue and that's blue raspberry, that's kind of fruit and that is okay. But blueberries, for example, some are sweet, some are tart. I would never want it to be so consistent. Imagine eating a big thing of blueberries and they all tasted exactly the same. It would be kind of freaky. Damn. You just like took me out of my body for a second saying that.

18:56How boring would life be if everything was so uniform? Just like you're saying, we go out and we pick a blueberry or pick the apples off the tree and they're all the same exact size and the same exact flavor. Oh, my God. It's so spooky. It is. I feel like there's that movie where like everything's just generated. Oh, my gosh. Don't like it. I don't like what you just did, Damaris. But you raise a very good point. Like we could be picking up products off the shelf that we think are natural and we think are good for us. And hey, you know what? I don't know enough about natural flavors to say, well, everything in that natural flavor is not good.

19:33Because it might be. Who knows? But you're raising very good points right now because we are getting kind of like far away from food and beverage from its natural form. Yeah, exactly. And if everything in that natural flavor were fine, then why not disclose it? I think that's the problem with it as well. The lack of transparency. Absolutely. You literally have to, when you're creating an ingredient label, have everything by weight. You can't say organic if it's not organic. And then here you go. Just slap on a natural flavor. I don't understand how that's Omaha. It is very interesting because natural isn't even a regulated term.

20:09As long as it's mimicking something in nature, you're good. Which is, it's scary. It is scary. Because it's like, what is the spectrum of natural and mimicking something in nature? It's very wide. There's a lot of things at natural that you would never want to eat. You would never want to eat gasoline, but that comes from a natural source. I also learned that in people who are making vanilla flavors, there's a wood pulp that can taste like vanilla. So you just never know. And if someone said natural flavors, here's the list. I'd be like, great. Like, I can read it. I can understand it. I'm fine with it.

20:44But yeah, the lack of transparency is a no for me. How do you feel as somebody pretty early into building your brand, seeing people like Brody Burke from Sprouts taking a stance on LinkedIn, for example, and saying like, this is something we're taking a look at as an organization and we want to hear from brands not using natural flavors. How does that make you feel? It makes me excited, especially as a consumer, not even as a brand, because I am a label reader. I don't want to have to be a label reader. I wish I could just trust all the food that I was eating. I lived in Europe for a little while, and it was much easier to just go in and grab something and trust that it wasn't full of a bunch of chemicals.

21:27Not everything was true to that, but it was much easier to trust the food you were eating. Like berries would go bad after a few days. They wouldn't just like stay okay in your fridge. But I love that there are retailers who are starting to take a stance on it because as soon as they start demanding that their brands are cleaner and more transparent, the better we are as a whole society because there are people who will not be reading every label. And we just want to be able to trust, especially in these natural retailers, the food that we're getting. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. I think it's a great thing for retailers to be looking at.

22:05And then also brands who are formulating with natural flavors or even artificial flavors to be able to say, hmm, OK, they might be on to something. What can I do for my brand for the next five, 10 years to get to a point where I have an alternative or maybe pivot altogether? Who knows? Yeah, exactly. I do think this is something consumers are really going to start looking at because there's always something we have to scrutinize. This is a pretty good one to look at. I agree. What do you see the evolution of short story looking like in five years? Yeah. So it's funny how big my dreams have become when I look back nine months ago when it was an idea in my head.

22:46It's so crazy. Like last year, we just had this idea. I was making my electrolytes at home. I gave some to my dad. I remember this. I was like, try these electrolytes I made. He was like, okay. And I was like, I think I might start a business. He was like, okay. But it really started out as we wanted to be able to make it into our local farmer's market. We live in Denver and we have some really great markets here, but the one in particular in our neighborhood is adorable. And I've been a fan for years. And I was like, if we can get into the market, that would be amazing. We got into the market and the response that we have had from people coming to our booth has blown us away.

23:23We've had so many people saying, I've been looking for this or what you're doing is important or where can I find you in stores? And we already ran through our first production run. We projected for it to last the entire season. So we're already on our second run. So the demand is there. And my little dream of starting at the farmer's market, I was like, oh, maybe I'll go into Amazon after. And now it's almost turned into this dream where I'm passionate about people just being able to find something like this in a store themselves. I think about my friends who are pregnant or who have kids or who are just wanting to eat cleanly.

23:59And I'm like, why not go for retail? Why not try to get it on shelf? And yes, it's scary. But also, I think you can just learn everything that you aren't familiar with and take the steps to make it happen. I think that's actually one of the reasons why my background not being in CPG has been helpful because I just kind of go for it. And then we figure it out. And so in five years, I would love to see us in all of the major natural retailers because that is where I expected to find something like this. And I also see a lot of opportunity outside of that, especially in Colorado. There are wellness clubs.

24:39There are so many people who are just interested in taking care of themselves and knowing what they're putting into their bodies. I can just see this brand everywhere. I also would love to have a few flavors besides lemon, but I don't want to go too crazy on the flavors. I think just having like a nice little set of some daily flavors that you can choose from would be awesome. Maybe a berry. That's my vote. There you go. For those retailers that you want to be on shelf with, if they're listening right now, what do you want to say to them about Short Story? I think there's a lot of opportunity with short story helping bring people into your stores.

25:16Just like I was searching for something like this, people are drinking hydration products daily and they're looking for something clean. I feel like it is a right time, right place to start bringing a brand like this into your store and it will start to drive traffic. I literally went to Whole Foods. Nothing was there that met what I was looking for. I drove to Sprouts. Nothing was there that met what I was looking for. Natural grocers, same thing, on and on. and I looked at all of the sets and I couldn't find it. And that's why I started making my own. So I think there's a lot of opportunity to start bringing in people who could really, one, benefit from this product, but who are also looking for it.