For Your Own Good › Episode 57
Building NYC’s Cult Yogurt Brand from Scratch
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About this episode
Kiki Couchman turned a cease & desist into a viral rebrand — and is building the coolest yogurt brand NYC’s ever seen. Founder of NYC’s cult yogurt brand Sour Milk , Kiki joins me live in front of an audience to talk about how she’s turning probiotics and packaging into a full-blown brand movement. This episode is part startup war story, part brand-building masterclass, and part love letter to making weird things work. We cover: Why she changed the name mid-launch and made it go viral Building credibility with no investors, no retail, and no playbook The gritty realities of cold chain CPG and fighting Big Dairy How she’s scaling without burning out — while still making reels every day Her vision for authentic storytelling, internet-native brands, and being the yogurt of a generation Plus, we open it up for audience Q&A , and Kiki drops real gems about identity, risk, co-founder relationships, and her take on building in public without selling out . If you’re a founder, creator, or brand nerd — this one’s for you. Recorded at Founders Common in NYC, a big thanks to Damian and Founders Common for hosting us. Watch YouTube to catch the video versions: https://www.youtube.com/@KassidyWarren Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/for-your-o Connect with Hosts/Guests: Kassidy https://www.instagram.com/kassidy.warren Kiki https://www.instagram.com/couchwoman Founders Common https://lu.ma/founderscommon https://www.instagram.com/founderscommon #ForYourOwnGood #KassidyWarren #FYOG
Key moments
- 0:02:34 “said "Nope." And a month later we got a cease and desist and Alain and I”
- 0:04:12 “frameworks of what actually made a good name for us ultimately though it's like an emotional”
- 0:13:41 “success points before we really feel confident to continue growing are you doing this intentionally to”
- 0:15:12 “co-founder best friend and we were both deciding who's going to be the person to be”
- 0:24:21 “the sawdust the zantham gums cornstarch you'll see a lot of cornstarch yeah the classic stuff”
- 0:39:11 “what else did you find out on that conversation with David Bars yeah they gave away”
- 0:47:23 “it's yogurt that it's in the yogurt aisle it's a plain yogurt and to them what's”
- 0:49:00 “actually been on the the front lines marketing and she had wanted to go with a”
Read the full transcript
Auto-generated from the episode captions; may contain small errors.
0:00:00twothirds of Americans have gut issues i care so much about healing America's gut what is sour milk
0:00:06milk itself is a sexy word what I want people to remember is yogurt is alive and what you're
0:00:11eating is an alive fermented product we sold out of 1500 yogurts in 7 days bigger brands are just
0:00:17showing you like the polished version and what builds trust with the consumer is taking them
0:00:21through the ups and the downs and the real failures throughout i get to try Chabani and
0:00:26tell you it tastes really bad and there's a lot of shitty things in it a sour milk like I don't
0:00:30know if I want to stand for that i get an email in my inbox that says "If you don't change your
0:00:33name in seven days we're going to take legal action." Kiki Couchman what is sour milk it is
0:00:43a high probiotic Greek yogurt that's made for your gut so we're taking all the probiotics
0:00:49you'd find or in a pill or powder supplement and actually culturing it in your yogurt
0:00:53what is behind the name celery milk well obviously there's like the gut punch of like ew sour milk
0:01:00right like it's almost spoiled and people have that initial reaction but really what
0:01:05I want people to remember is yogurt is alive and what you're eating is an alive fermented product
0:01:11that has so many good probiotics in it and so instead of just you're eating the random yogurt
0:01:18in the yogurt aisle you're eating sour milk cool and then there is a story behind how you
0:01:24got to the name right yes there is
0:01:26so and actually when when I saw this on your on your Instagram I thought this
0:01:31is a founders's dream come true this is like one of those stories that founders tell like
0:01:36"Oh we were we were going for it everything was lining up and then we hit this snag." So
0:01:41what's the story behind the name Sour Milk oh yeah i mean it was horrible like it was
0:01:46one of those things where the real story is we got I went to Expo West there's another company
0:01:53out there called Benny they're also two girls who are in their mid20s and I ran into them and I said
0:01:59"Oh my god you're the other Benny girls it's so nice to meet you." No response from them 2 days
0:02:05later I get an email in my inbox that says "Hey we've recently become aware of your name and if
0:02:10you don't change your name in 7 days we're going to take legal action." So yes I saw a grimace um
0:02:17that's exactly how we felt and we said "No like we're not going to change our name we're going
0:02:22to negotiate we think we can have a coexistence agreement dairy is really hard i don't plan to
0:02:27move out of dairy you're an energy drinks company can't we just be in two different places?" They
0:02:34said "Nope." And a month later we got a cease and desist and Alain and I looked at each other
0:02:40she's my co-founder and we decided okay we could try and fight this but that's going to be like
0:02:45$30,000 in legal battle and it's just not worth it by the time we actually potentially win and
0:02:52it's not even a clear case we might already have packaging in the world we've already built more
0:02:56brand equity why don't we change the name now so we decided to change the name we had no idea
0:03:02what to do we again it was like this pit in our stomach we've already created a following
0:03:07yes we're not launched but we already had like 15,000 followers 1500 people on our weight list
0:03:12like people knew who we were and people called us Benny like they knew us as that and so we decided
0:03:20okay what better thing to do than to bring this to social media and why don't we turn this into
0:03:25a huge marketing campaign and that obviously was not the intent from the get-go we did not want to
0:03:31do this but we decided let's put a spin on this and let's galvanize our followers to really feel
0:03:37super bought into our story and rooting for us and wanting us to win and hopefully we didn't
0:03:42even know what the name would be on the other side but like we'll figure out a better name and we
0:03:46know people will be with us through that journey and so what was the process or how did you land on
0:03:51Sour Milk yeah yeah i mean it was like obsessive like the next
0:03:543 weeks all we could do was like eat drink sleep names like I would look at something I'd be like
0:03:59frigid air why is it called Frigid Air oh my god why is that a good name why is that a bad name or
0:04:03like Hydro Flask okay what is that what makes that a good name bad name vitamin water it was like I
0:04:08couldn't go through the world without thinking about the name and so we started to develop
0:04:12frameworks of what actually made a good name for us ultimately though it's like an emotional
0:04:17decision and we were just no pun intended it was like a gut feeling whether we wanted to go
0:04:22with sour milk or not we landed on that category because we wanted it to be both easy and simple
0:04:30so we like sour milk and that is something that people know and recognize already we want it to be
0:04:36super memorable so again it's that like delta and being a negative word to actually being a positive
0:04:42brand association that creates that memorability and then we just kind of like the sexiness of the
0:04:47name like milk itself is a sexy word and we were thinking about what are other plays on milk that
0:04:52we can do but sour milk really like hit all those criteria you might be the only person
0:04:58that has ever said milk is a sexy word milk is a sexy word can't you see like
0:05:03we were thinking like okay what's a campaign with like milk dripping down
0:05:07someone's face like it's a very you know yeah also when you just said frigid air
0:05:12I think that's the first time I've ever realized that frigid air means cold air
0:05:16right for frigid air yeah frigid exactly all right so you've been you've been building it public
0:05:22and you went from private equity into starting your own company yes and a CPG food company
0:05:31that seems pretty crazy right uh so what has it been like to shift your identity
0:05:38from someone in private equity into a founder it's a great question i think it was a lot harder
0:05:44than I thought i went to Stanford and every other person calls themselves a founder at Stanford at
0:05:51one point or another and they're starting some like random company and they raised like $10,000
0:05:55and they're a founder right um and so to me that was like an uncomfortable identity to shift into
0:06:00was it felt like this cliche of like founder boys that I didn't want to associate with and that's
0:06:06what I knew it to be in my head but actually going through the shift was a lot harder because I think
0:06:12I had spent my whole life pegging my identity to external institutions so I was a straight A
0:06:18student in high school i got into Stanford oh I'm a Stanford student that immediately
0:06:22gives me credibility wherever I go oh I work in private equity oh what fund do you work at oh
0:06:26I work at this fund oh my god that's an amazing fund great immediate credibility and now I'm in
0:06:31a place where I have literally zero credibility because our product is not even a grocery store
0:06:36shelf right all I have is like the followers on my account and and the number of yogurts
0:06:40we've sold and I have to I have nowhere to pin my identity as Kiki Couchman other than literally
0:06:47myself and the backing of this company and by the way we have no backers we have no fundraisers so
0:06:51we also have no institutional backing to give us credibility in any way so that's been the hardest
0:06:56part is actually just like gaining the confidence to be my own person and stand on my own two feet
0:07:02without actually having anything behind me so what did give you the confidence because it's
0:07:07totally different to be in a corporate job private equity to be on the other side and I know what
0:07:13you mean about like the founder boy culture out on the West Coast like everybody is a founder i
0:07:17don't know how it is in New York here but um so I understand the negative perception of oh I'm
0:07:23an entrepreneur oh I'm a founder you know you're still living
0:07:26entrepreneur vibe yes serial entrepreneur you're
0:07:28living in your mom you're living in your mom's basement and I'm an entrepreneur right yeah
0:07:32yes yes and so what did give you the confidence to go start this company from where you came from
0:07:41i don't know if it was truly confidence or if it was just conviction that now is the right time so
0:07:46I don't think that there was a moment where I'm like yes I've got this like I am the right person
0:07:51to do this it was that oh I feel so compelled to work on this project i care so much about healing
0:07:58America's gut i care so much about doing something about that and putting something into the world
0:08:05and by the way I'm 26 and now is the time to work really hard and to grind every day and I want that
0:08:12in my life right now and I have runway in front of me where I don't need to make money i have no
0:08:16one to care for but myself and so now really felt like exactly the window of opportunity
0:08:21to actually jump and do that so much more about that than actually like go kiki you know
0:08:26why do you care so much about other people's guts yes um well I studied human biology which I think
0:08:34says a little bit of something about that i grew up in agriculture area and to me I'm just like the
0:08:41two most important things on Earth are planetary health and human health and like that's what keeps
0:08:47us here and so all the other things yes very important but to me personally those are the
0:08:53most important things twothirds of Americans have gut issues i would say I'd venture to say it's
0:08:58like far more than that we're at the frontier of gut health research in the microbiome and we're
0:09:04realizing it leads to Alzheimer's to a lot of cancers to a lot of chronic conditions let alone
0:09:09just like general bloating and discomfort every single day in our lives and so I care because
0:09:15it's both something that I personally experience but also I see so many other people experiencing
0:09:19and we're seeing a lot of like point solutions for it we're seeing a lot of this supplement
0:09:23or this pill or this powder or this like goop or this spoonful you take in the morning and
0:09:29ultimately I want to meet people where they are i don't want to force them to make another habit
0:09:34like I don't want you to have to take another thing in the morning just eat your yogurt bowl
0:09:38that you eat every single day 92% of Americans eat yogurt so why don't we just meet you where you are
0:09:43and eat the thing you already love and you get all the benefits of actually a healing probiotic
0:09:49and so then why why is yogurt the product versus an alternative milk type product
0:09:56because we love dairy we're big dairy girls over here but also there's a lot of alternative
0:10:00products on the market and I think there's a lot that are doing really good things like coconut
0:10:04cult is doing an awesome stuff with probiotics they're sort of in making you introduce a new
0:10:09habit as well by taking like one tablespoon but that's okay um dairy itself already has all the
0:10:16macros that we want in our yogurt so a cup of milk already has 6 to 8 g of protein like these
0:10:22things that we care about a lot that we're trying to achieve in society like our protein goals like
0:10:27our good fats our good micronutrients those are already existent in dairy and so that's like the
0:10:33biggest reason is we care a lot about that i think the other thing is you're seeing just a cultural
0:10:38trend back towards that so this is not the reason we started a dairy yogurt company but I think we
0:10:42get the benefit of people moving more towards the outer aisles moving away from veganism from
0:10:48Oatley realizing it spikes your blood sugar levels there's so many seed oils in it whatever all these
0:10:53alternatives let's go back to the real source of animal products and let's actually create
0:10:57something that's speaking to a younger generation and that actually does good for our our bodies too
0:11:03yeah love that and you're how old again 26
0:11:0626 i wish I cared this much about my gut health and everything when I was your age yeah
0:11:11you can now though oh I love it get you some yogurt
0:11:13whole Foods yeah I know and and I don't eat a lot of dairy but now I'm like convinced that
0:11:18maybe maybe it can be good for me yeah exactly the way that you are documenting
0:11:23your journey as a founder feels very authentic it feels like it's a very local New York native
0:11:32vibe and internet native it's somehow you've been able to like create this local authentic vibe as
0:11:41well as like tying in the internet aspects can you talk a little bit about your intention or approach
0:11:46behind how you've been documenting everything yeah so I'll just start with the New York local
0:11:51vibe we are a refrigerated cold chain product that has an 8week shelf life so we cannot be everywhere
0:11:58everyone asks us "When are you shipping?" I'm like "When are you willing to pay for a refrigerated
0:12:02product to come to your door?" And so because of that we are really forced to build our local
0:12:07base here in New York because we actually don't have a cold chain system that's already set up
0:12:12nationwide right and so there's almost like a forcing mechanism to be hyper local but I think
0:12:19that creates such this vibe of exclusivity and community- based and authenticity because we're
0:12:25truly like city biking around this city everything we're doing is very real to our story and also
0:12:31very necessary for the type of product that we're actually producing so I think there's a handinhand
0:12:36with the product and the content that actually does really well to actually curate that vibe yeah
0:12:42so what happens when you get bigger though like what like are you going
0:12:45to be biking around the city forever no no we will not be biking around the
0:12:49city forever we'll be in retail and retail chains can take us we'll have much bigger distribution
0:12:55across the US but we still want to start hyper local so again what people probably don't know
0:13:01about retail is if you don't sell through your product so if your expiration date hits and
0:13:05you're in a grocery store you can get charged back so you have to pay back for that product
0:13:10that they don't sell that's really expensive and you have no way you can forecast 20% right
0:13:16each month of what you think might be charged back that's a lot of product we want to make
0:13:21sure we can get 100% sell through when we hit the grocery store shelves and so where can we
0:13:26do that new York City let's conquer New York City let's do it really really really well here in New
0:13:31York and then we'll expand to the Northeast and then we'll expand to Mid-Atlantic and then we'll
0:13:35expand to California and then we'll expand beyond um but it really takes those specific
0:13:41success points before we really feel confident to continue growing are you doing this intentionally
0:13:45to market the product or is it really around like this is the best way for us to build this
0:13:52i think it goes like hand in hand i think the success of content for me everybody asks how
0:14:01do you do this how do you build a company how do you come up with a new real or a new TikTok
0:14:05every single day how are you doing i just did an AMA all day today like how do you do this
0:14:09stuff when you're also you know going up to your co-manufacturer developing your recipe talking
0:14:14to retailers and it's because the content we're creating is actually just the decisions we're
0:14:19making and actually just the things that we're doing to build this business and so it fuels
0:14:24both authentic cuz it is but also really easy because it's just documenting the stuff that
0:14:28we're doing you have to know how to package it right and you have to know how to make it
0:14:32interesting and intriguing and attractive like a world that people want to actually be part of
0:14:37but that's sort of the marketing spin otherwise I think it's just essentially
0:14:42what we're doing and there's the only intention is that creates a following
0:14:46and that creates a community and that creates an engaged audience that can then show up for
0:14:49us and so what are some of the other things that founders can do to replicate the success
0:14:55that you've had around content creation and documentation you mentioned AMAs and packaging
0:15:00but like are there other things that you found that surprised you about documenting
0:15:05i think when I initially went into this our intent was Alana and I were both Alana is my
0:15:12co-founder best friend and we were both deciding who's going to be the person to be the face on
0:15:19social media and we both made practice you know short form videos and we decided it was
0:15:23absolutely not her and so it was going to have to be me and I had never done it before but it just
0:15:29was slightly easier for me than it was for her and we thought okay the reason we're going to do
0:15:34this is because we want to pay zero on CAC like we want to have the lowest customer acquisition
0:15:39cost possible so I don't want to have to pay an influencer to do this why don't we just skewer
0:15:44one of ourselves to become the influencer so I got skewered and I'm the influencer now and we
0:15:49saw that as a way to gain customers and that was our initial intent i think the thing that we've
0:15:53seen as like an unintended consequence very positive consequence is the founder community
0:15:58that's come out of it like I have been connected to so many CPG founders through this people ask
0:16:03me "How do you know all these people?" I'm like "Instagram." Like that's truly the answer and
0:16:08also so many other companies that have helped us in our journey so our logistics company our we
0:16:14need refrigerated trucking wherever we go we can't just you know rent a van and bring our
0:16:19yogurt back down from upstate we have to have a reapfer truck where did that come from that
0:16:24came from a girl DMing me on Instagram who was an account executive at this logistics company like
0:16:29I didn't even know where to begin to find that and so I began to have these conversations with people
0:16:32in the industry and opportunities opened up that I would never have imagined because of social media
0:16:38how much of what you thought you knew in the beginning
0:16:40like 0% 0% i like even ask me like a week ago what I knew about this industry i know like
0:16:49150% more than what I knew a week ago right so it's just like and that that goes from marketing
0:16:55from Instagram from like the craft of creating a video from literally like the yogurt aisle it's
0:17:02like a race to the bottom and understanding what the economics look like in the yogurt aisle or
0:17:06retail or distribution like all of those things I've learned so much about which also is a very
0:17:11fun thing that's another reason we decided to do to do this was we felt like we were both
0:17:16plateauing in our learning in our previous jobs and we wanted to immerse ourselves into
0:17:20a world where we knew nothing but it wasn't unknowable like this is a knowable world that
0:17:25we can actually learn we're going to have to get up and ramp very quickly but it's going
0:17:29to be really fun and like very meaty also that's one of the main reasons I started
0:17:33the podcast is to really expand my learning and my growth yeah it's cool
0:17:37through through co through the work that I was doing during co and and beyond got really heads
0:17:43down really isolated really just like stuck in the work and then I wasn't learning anymore either
0:17:48and so as part of the podcast it's like I just want to go meet people who are doing really cool
0:17:52things that I've never even thought of or heard of and be be a part of it be able to live through
0:17:56these people and then share it with everybody and you're like you just get to ask people
0:17:59questions all day which is like amazing i I did uh I did I sponsored a conference and I did like
0:18:0514 podcasts in like two and a half days and at the end a lot of people asked me oh if my voice
0:18:11hurt at all i was like no I just had to sit and ask questions and let everyone else talk
0:18:16it's very cool i love the reciprocal relationship of being able to do this and then having everyone
0:18:22in the room right now is is really cool um so how many like where are you at in the shipping
0:18:29of your product yeah totally we're super super early last week we just did actually now a week
0:18:36and a half ago we just did our first ever large scale production run and so it's not like a we're
0:18:43launched production run now it's in retail it's like this was our first large scale production
0:18:47run which means it's an R&D test run so we did as much as possible to control all the variables on
0:18:52like a stove top so like a small yogurt batch but once you actually you know start testing at large
0:18:59scale with dairy you're working with really high minimum order quantities so you can't just go to
0:19:05a manufacturer and be like can we just do a test run of like a 100 yogurts you have to do a minimum
0:19:10of 250 gallons of milk that is so much milk that brought us to 1,500 single serving yogurts
0:19:18wow just for our first test run and we didn't know was that going to be great was that going
0:19:22to be kind of fine like we have no idea we did it it turned out great there's some things in
0:19:27the process that were not quite optimized so we're working on that but the actual product is amazing
0:19:32and delicious and so we made that last week we put up on our website hey guys come and pick up orders
0:19:38pre-order pick up in different locations around the city we sold out all 1,248 yogurts in 7 days
0:19:45which is amazing i have actually like 50 yogurts left here to sell to all of you if you guys are
0:19:50interested um and so now we're going to go back up again to our manufacturer we're going to do
0:19:56one more test run this week because like I said we have some kinks in our process that we just
0:20:00want to iron out we'll sell those 1500 yogurts again in 2 weeks and then I think we're going to
0:20:08lay low a bit until we actually do a real big launch so day one really starts when we're
0:20:14actually in retail and that'll come in the fall um between now and then we have to work on finalizing
0:20:19our packaging getting our nutrition label on the packaging that takes 10 weeks then you have to
0:20:23do your packaging minimum order quantity is 150,000 units so we got to make sure that's
0:20:28iron tight right um we were talking to retailers that takes a long time you need to convince them
0:20:33that you're worth putting in and fighting out you know chabani to get yourself into the refrigerator
0:20:38space takes a lot of money too so we're in that process of having those conversations which will
0:20:43put us out a few more months before we're really there so what are the big obstacles then going
0:20:48through all that obviously the minimum quantities but like how do you actually get onto the shelf
0:20:53there's two really big things you need to do you need to win accounts which is in retail so I need
0:20:57to go to you know let's say Cinderella or wherever it is in New York City and I need to get to the
0:21:03buyer so sometimes you go to the store manager in person then you get to the buyer and you give
0:21:07them a test of your product and really you need to convince them why is your product going to get
0:21:11bring in more people to Cinderella than Siggies or then you know White mustache which is a very fancy
0:21:18yogurt here in New York City so that's number one is you need to win over the accounts number two
0:21:24is then how are you going to get your yogurt into that grocery store some of those grocery stores
0:21:29let you yourself distribute the yogurt which means bring it from your factory to the grocery store
0:21:35but most people don't and that means you need to find a distributor who's willing to take you so
0:21:40then there's a middleman that's involved and you need to find that distributor some grocery stores
0:21:44only work with some distributors so you need to find those distributors you need to get them to
0:21:49agree to take you on and then you start getting cut your profits start getting cut because now
0:21:55there's a middleman involved so that's really what the big two hurdles are for us over the next
0:22:00few months is finding the right accounts to go after and winning those accounts and then getting
0:22:05distributors and making sure we're at a price point that makes sense for everybody involved
0:22:09so that way we can still stay in business and grow and so you're sort of going up against big dairy
0:22:14we are yep
0:22:17so like what like what's the strategy behind going up against big dairy
0:22:20what is the strategy so dairy is a commodity which most people like think but don't truly
0:22:26know what that means there's a floor price set for milk every month by the government like it's
0:22:33truly a commodity which means obviously every dairy product downstream of that is affected
0:22:39by that and yogurt like I just said is a race to the bottom so you're looking at Chabani and
0:22:46you know you're paying $1.29 for a yogurt guess how much they're actually like making from that
0:22:51yogurt by the time it goes to the distributor to the grocery store you're making probably 20
0:22:54cents off of every yogurt that's sold so and and for scale here our yogurt cup costs $110
0:23:01like literally just the packaging of the cup so in order to be competitive we have to be a
0:23:06higher price point for us to be able to stay in business right so we're going up against
0:23:10big yogurt that's tough when it's a race to the bottom we're saying no f that we're not going
0:23:15to do the race to the bottom we're going to put ourselves in a different category coconut Coat
0:23:19was able to do that they were able to totally break that ceiling they're charging like $14
0:23:24a tiny little jar and people are buying it off the shelves we will not be that price
0:23:29but that show that there is a market and people actually are willing to pay for real probiotics
0:23:34real ingredients and things that actually work for their body and so we're saying that's what
0:23:39we're going to do we're going to provide you better macros real whole milk organic milk and
0:23:45real probiotics that are actually going to help you every day and so we're gonna
0:23:48price it higher and take a totally different strategy from what everyone else is doing
0:23:51so I hear you saying like why yours is better and you're saying real whole milk yes
0:23:57are you saying that Chabani
0:23:59and other they don't use real whole milk what they what they do use is they use a
0:24:03lot of additives to cut a lot of the milk there's also a lot of milk powders and concentrates that
0:24:08are put back in to fortify the protein levels and also to create the illusion of thickness but
0:24:14actually without straining it so you'll get other gums and powders and yeah those types of things
0:24:21the sawdust the zantham gums cornstarch you'll see a lot of cornstarch
0:24:26yeah the classic stuff i didn't realize that okay and so what are the big risks for you coming up
0:24:32when you do all this right and everything
0:24:35yeah i mean the difference between like building a SAS company and building a literal product is
0:24:42like the past two weeks I have not slept well because I have product sitting in a warehouse
0:24:46that could blow up it could go to waste it could get eaten by rats it could catch on fire like all
0:24:51these things could actually happen people could get sick like who knows what could happen so to
0:24:56me the biggest risk is like the the physicality of it makes it so fulfilling and so amazing to
0:25:02watch people actually eat your product to fold it in their hands to be able to say I created this
0:25:06thing within you know 4 months but it's also to me the biggest risk and like the scariest
0:25:12thing that keeps me up at night is that all of this can go to waste and that's where all of our
0:25:16equity is in is in this literal physical product and I heard you mention in the beginning that
0:25:20you're it's not just the body health but the environmental health that you're that
0:25:24you're concerned about is there anything that you're doing in terms of packaging uh
0:25:28your product and other processes that you're thinking about environmental
0:25:32definitely where our cows are coming from so or where milk is coming from where the cows
0:25:37live and graze so that's number one is we're looking at you know organic grass-fed milk
0:25:42that's of course going to be a premium and so it's something we're testing with customers is do they
0:25:47care that it's grass-fed or not we definitely care that it's organic but is there another
0:25:51layer that people care about that's for the environment another is the packaging so we're
0:25:56in a very prototype packaging phase right now what you'll see is not what the final is um but it was
0:26:01a huge debate do we do glass or do we do plastic because people are under the illusion that glass
0:26:06is often more environmental when it comes to shipping costs fuel associated actually the
0:26:11process of making glass it is actually way more environmentally taxing than a lot of the plastic
0:26:15that we're using so we've chosen to go with plastic that has a paper wrapper on the outside
0:26:20this is an important part that we need to message but to make it recyclable because it is recyclable
0:26:25you have to take off the paper before you put it in the recycling so we'll do something around
0:26:30that make some sort of campaign uh but those have been all like thoughtful and intentional decisions
0:26:34that we've made along the way just to make sure that we do have the environment in mind as well
0:26:38i've always wondered about water consumption around uh product packaging
0:26:44right cuz with glass there there's a lot more water that's used
0:26:46there is so much more and do you know anything about the difference in consumption of water
0:26:51i don't have any numbers that I could tell you but I do know that it's a lot more glass
0:26:55yeah my my wife used to be a really big recycler and then there was a lot of
0:27:00information that came out about it's all just getting dumped in the ocean or sent to China
0:27:03a lot of it is yeah and then the amount of water that's being used and and so now
0:27:07unfortunately a lot of stuff just goes in the trash and I don't know how it is in New York
0:27:10City with the recycling but it's not m Yeah
0:27:13i can tell you it's better in California yeah okay what frustrates you the most about the
0:27:18way that the bigger brands operate or some of we talked a little bit about the processes and some
0:27:23of the things they use as fillers but like what are some other frustrating things or things that
0:27:26just don't align with with you that the big brands do it's a great question i frustrates maybe isn't
0:27:33like the right I don't have an answer for that i do have an answer for what I think they're doing
0:27:37wrong per se and I think the thing that's really on our side is how much is the authenticity that
0:27:44we're able to show like there's a discomfort that Alain and I often have with saying "Damn we just
0:27:52got a cease and desist." Or like "Oh [ __ ] this product tastes really bad." Or like "Uh you know
0:27:57this went wrong." Because that's not what bigger brands are doing bigger brands are just showing
0:28:01you like the polished version version at the very end of whatever R&D process they had whatever
0:28:07brand building process they had but actually I think that this process has made me led to believe
0:28:14that like that actually doesn't build trust with the consumer and what builds trust with the
0:28:19consumer is taking them through like the ups and the downs and the real failures throughout because
0:28:24they can see and they can trust that actually now I actually really believe in this product
0:28:28i believe in the people who are making this i see the brand i can trust where my food is coming from
0:28:34and this process just really is made highlighted that for me like as a consumer now I'm a very
0:28:38different consumer when I think about buying from a big brand a very opaque brand versus one
0:28:43where I get to see the whole process and where it's coming from opaque brand like that yeah
0:28:48yeah there's a lot of opaque uh yogurts and so how do you start to scale your
0:28:56community engagement as you grow you're launching we're looking into the future
0:29:00how does how do how do you scale the in real life connection how do you scale community as you grow
0:29:06that's a really good question i don't know like I don't know we're figuring it out i think it's
0:29:11something where currently we've just sort of tackled the next thing as it's come and we're
0:29:18sort of lucky that things have worked out and I'm sure things could have worked out better but we've
0:29:23just made it work whatever direction it's taken us and so I sort of see that as the next phase is
0:29:28how do we make this scalable the biggest thing I think about is how do we tap into existing places
0:29:33where our customers are where we don't need to build that audience we can just tap into
0:29:38an existing audience get our name out there and if you think about like we're like a drop of blue
0:29:44or blue if we're a drop of blue ink like we get to go into another cup of water drop our little
0:29:49bit of blue ink and it spreads everywhere and then to another cup of water and another another cup of
0:29:53water and I see that even here right like I get to tap into your audience i get to tap into these
0:29:57Damian's audience Founders Common's audience and I get to be here for 45 minutes and share
0:30:04my yogurt and then I hope that you all enjoy it receive the message can tell that story to your
0:30:09friends and it continues sort of bleeding on and expanding that's my best answer i have no idea
0:30:15yeah i mean I think keep sharing the story too right yeah
0:30:18over and over i'm like you have to say it 10 times before somebody remembers what it is yeah
0:30:22yeah yeah and at what point are you just the talent that shows up and
0:30:27fully totally I'm like it's very sometimes you're just like a figurehead for something you know and
0:30:32it feels it can be very exhausting what have you taken from private
0:30:35equity into what you're doing now two biggest things one is what are you
0:30:40building towards i think being very clear about are we building towards an exit are we building
0:30:45towards profitability are we building towards exiting towards a strategic towards another
0:30:49fund towards whatever it is informs the decisions that we're making in the beginning not so much
0:30:56now it's really beginning to inform the decisions we're making whether we fund raise whether we buy
0:31:00a factory or do we just use a co-manufacturer um those types of things so that's number one number
0:31:06two is align stakeholders this sounds like such like a corporate jargony thing to say uh but I
0:31:12was sitting in a lot of rooms where I was advising CEOs and executive teams who were like 40 years my
0:31:20senior and there were so many different parties there was you know the fund level there's the
0:31:27executive teams there's the board seats there's all these different people and you need to make
0:31:30sure they're all on board and the secret is you can still have the answer and you can guide them
0:31:36all towards that answer you just need to sort of whisper in all their ears and make sure they're
0:31:40brought along in the decision-m process and then you can make sure they end up all on the same page
0:31:44and I feel like that's how I treat every decision we make with our community and our followers is
0:31:50you know maybe we already already actually know the answer it's just about bringing you along in
0:31:55the decision-m process so you can see how I got to that answer so even if you would have
0:31:59made a different decision you can empathize and understand where we where we were so that's sort
0:32:04of the second soft skill corpory thing yeah stakeholder management is
0:32:09is not my favorite thing to do no it's exhausting it's exhausting but
0:32:13yeah in that environment you have to do it and so now you besides your your customers
0:32:19and your audience you don't like you are the board member you are
0:32:22Oh that's the most amazing thing it's like there's no back and forth right it's just me and Alan and
0:32:27we just make the decision together or I just make the decision I tell her and then we run from there
0:32:31so there's not this annoying you know loop that you're always stuck in but I will say sometimes
0:32:37we make a decision and then I think oh my god we haven't like we're going to make that decision
0:32:41and nobody else knows about that and all of a sudden they're just going to see us at our
0:32:44co-manufacturer and I spent all this time telling them about how we're going to decide to choose a
0:32:49factory what are the different you know factors and variables that we're choosing a factory on and
0:32:53all of a sudden they're just going to see me there that's very disjointed i need to tell that story
0:32:57in between and so sometimes we have to go back and actually think about what's the narrative that we
0:33:01are telling and how we made this decision and so that's also always on my mind is how do I sort of
0:33:07spin that story spin is like a very negative thing it's not manipulative at all it's more just like
0:33:11how do you fill in everybody to where to where you got Yeah you have to think about what they
0:33:14might be interested in learning from you yeah and uh it can be very detailed or it can be broad i
0:33:20think as I've started my social media journey like seeing what people are interested in has
0:33:25really like once you start sharing you get feedback from people
0:33:29all the time and so you can yeah you
0:33:32can you can see what people are interested in and then that that helps me understand what I
0:33:37can be sharing with with the audience what they really like the fact that I'm in New
0:33:41York right now my audience has just been like loving it loving it they absolutely love that
0:33:45I'm in New York for I everyone loves the city is why yeah I mean that's it's everyone loves
0:33:49the Everyone loves a city so that's a big piece of their heart so it's true it's true
0:33:54uh you mentioned that you are using one factory right and you said you might use or
0:33:59buy your own factory help me understand how you We won't We're not going to buy our own factory
0:34:05to be very clear um why not why not
0:34:08it's a good question because we need to raise like a ton of money to do that and actually go and do
0:34:14that and look Chbani did that that's how they got their start and now they're a huge company they're
0:34:19a generational company they're now inquisitive i think for us that's not the long-term goal at
0:34:25least not for right now um we want to do what's best for this company to actually be successful
0:34:31and right now like our main focus needs to be on growing it not necessarily on going and raising
0:34:37$20 million to go and buy a factory um it's about like getting the customer base growing it be up
0:34:42and running and maybe talk to me in like 2 years from now but for right now that's not the best
0:34:46decision i think you just made a really important point that anyone that's building a company can
0:34:51learn from keep your main thing the main thing so yes it might feel like going and buying the
0:34:57factory because Trabani did it and because you know you might need to at some point in
0:35:00the future but that's not necessarily your main thing and it can become a huge distraction from
0:35:06doing your main thing anything can happen in that time that you're focused on buying a
0:35:09factory especially with a small team instead of focusing on the main thing especially when
0:35:15you're so engaged with your audience yeah it's a really good point too
0:35:18yeah like they it feels related to go figure out this bottleneck
0:35:23that you might have but in reality it's a huge distraction especially
0:35:27in an early stage if you can narrow down the 20% the 5% of the things that you need to do
0:35:34and I'm you know I'm just No it's right if you can narrow down to like what are
0:35:37the what's the 5% of work that me as the founder that me as the co-founder that me
0:35:42as the content creator can do to achieve 95% of the results that's when you can be super
0:35:48super successful but it's hard to identify hard yeah I think you're so right it's like totally
0:35:54the ruthless prioritization another corporate jargony word that I'm just saying but it that
0:35:58is true is like there's so many distracting things I even think about it with like fundraising calls
0:36:03we're introduced to so many funds every day which is fantastic that we have you know inbound on
0:36:09wanting to have these networking conversations but it's so distracting when actually we have
0:36:14saved enough and put enough aside to get to our first real production run and so like like what
0:36:18you said it's like okay let's just keep the eye on the prize if we can get there then we can
0:36:22sort of you know continue on and continue on we don't actually need to do all these other things
0:36:26so what are you building for you mentioned exit raise like from your PE world and now
0:36:34your decisions are being influenced by or your decisions now matter more as you're building
0:36:39towards something so what are you building towards we are building we want to keep our options open
0:36:44and I know that's a non-answer but it is in the sense of we don't have as many strategic buyers
0:36:50as David's protein bar or lollipop or Poppy or whatever it might be because dairy and
0:37:00cold chain there's only there's fewer buyers so you know General Mills is shutting down
0:37:06all their yogurt like all these big companies that usually acquire are not actually looking
0:37:11in the yogurt aisle you have Lactillis which is a big yogurt brand they own Siggy Stonyfield um
0:37:16a lot of those big Brown cow a lot of big yogurt um Denown which has like OOS Dannon Danals you
0:37:23name it um and there's a few other players in the yogurt space but again we need to build for
0:37:30optionality because we don't have necessarily that like guaranteed exit guaranteed exit that
0:37:37a lot of these other like CBG shelf stable brands have so again we're keeping our options open which
0:37:44means we just need to build like a really solid business that can be profitable and that then we
0:37:49can either decide to keep and own as like you know a scaled business or that we do have the
0:37:55option one day to exit to one of these so are you focused on cash flow then on profitability
0:37:59mhm we are okay yeah
0:38:00which is a shift from the last 10 years really totally it is and you see that a little bit as
0:38:06a shift generally there's just like slightly less money being thrown out around in the venture world
0:38:11towards some of these CPG companies and yeah so yeah and you mentioned David protein bars I just
0:38:17discovered those uh recently love them and then I don't know if you know the recent news they well
0:38:22they're they're going to going to court but they bought yes
0:38:26the factory that produces the the binder so then they're going to cut everybody out of the market
0:38:32of being able to uh produce similar products yeah which is wild and you for I don't know
0:38:38how Alana and I were like not thinking about this but we got on we got on the phone with
0:38:42the founders the other day literally two days ago with David's protein bar and we're you know
0:38:47asking them all these questions and like midway through the call we realized oh stuff is so
0:38:52different for them because the founder started RX right so like they got like a leg up it's like oh
0:38:57yeah I started yo play now here I am starting a new company of course it's going to be you know
0:39:02we can get to 100 million revenue in the first year like there's there's definitely going to
0:39:06just be a leg up which he absolutely should take advantage of and it's a very different situation
0:39:11what else did you find out on that conversation with David Bars yeah
0:39:15they gave away a ton of free product in the first week that they launched and they hit a million in
0:39:21revenue in that first week which is insane but giving away free product was a huge flywheel for
0:39:27them because people were people never get free product and it wasn't influencers that they were
0:39:31giving free product to it was people who had been on their weight list who were normal people like
0:39:35you or me and we're not used to getting sent free things and so by getting sent something
0:39:40free of course they're going to talk about it of course they're going to tell all their
0:39:44friends about it they won't shut up about it they're going to post on their stories about
0:39:46it and it created this instant moment of virality and this sort of boost right in their first week
0:39:51of launch that was so critical to actually get them the growth that they wanted to see
0:39:55are you planning on something similar maybe something similar now we're like
0:39:58"Oh yeah it's a great idea." Yeah it is cuz word of mouth
0:40:01is still like one of the best ways to it's like organ that's what you need is organic virality
0:40:06yeah organic virality if I can have the moms
0:40:08talking about us to other moms at pickup and drop off then we're set like that's golden
0:40:13yeah you're on the next door app like that's what you want that's what you want you've won when you
0:40:17and you can do that totally totally
0:40:19so how do you avoid burnout with everything that you're doing
0:40:24i don't know i don't know i think that it's um Alana and I are like hitting that right
0:40:30now we're early it's been 6 months but the past like 3 weeks in particular we joke these are our
0:40:36investment banking days like we're you know up till 1:00 a.m up at 6:00 a.m again again again
0:40:42again physically demanding like physically biking trucking loading [ __ ] everywhere and it's really
0:40:50really really fun but also it's stressful and so it's one of those things where work doesn't feel
0:40:56like work but it also is stress we have like low-grade anxiety but then also we're having
0:41:00so much fun while doing it it's really hard to acknowledge that it's you know one way or another
0:41:06i don't know how we avoid burnout like we're just sort of in it and ask me again in like 6
0:41:11months and maybe I'll have an answer or maybe I'll still just be really in it i don't know
0:41:15yeah they say for people that are deciding what they want to do go find what feels like play to
0:41:21you but looks like work to others and then that's like your zone of genius that's your flow state
0:41:27and go hard go all in as much as you can oh yeah i mean
0:41:31I have friends who say "I can't believe you do this i can't believe you talk to so many
0:41:35strangers every day because every pickup drop off every customer I meet you know I talk to them i
0:41:41want to engage and like genuinely on authentically want to engage with you because I want to learn
0:41:46about you and what your yoga habits are and why you like this or why you don't or whatever it
0:41:50is but also I'm 99% an extrovert like on any test that I ever take and so to me I'm like
0:41:57this is just fun like this is just energizing and fun and plays to my strengths in a way that
0:42:02I think can be very draining for other people too one of the things that I heard from one
0:42:06of my mentors that resonated early on was that uh becoming an entrepreneur is actually the greatest
0:42:14self-improvement project you could ever go through do you feel like you become a different person
0:42:20better person better yes like you're constantly having to find your edge you're constantly
0:42:27learning like where are my weaknesses how do I address them how do I get better at them but I
0:42:32do feel like there's a double-edged sword where I feel like there's like a self-absorption that
0:42:37can come with that too which I don't love like I I don't feel like I am self-absorbed but my work
0:42:43is me and so I am absorbed in that bubble of sour milk of my social media of myself of how do I get
0:42:52better at this of how do I do and that is my world i don't have this like broader work community
0:42:57where I'm working towards this like other person's vision and this other team goal and so I think
0:43:02that's like the other side of the founder thing that I I don't know it's I'm still sitting with
0:43:08I was going to ask so how do you balance that i feel like I've become like a worse socializer
0:43:12with friends it's like I don't have anything to talk about other like my work um but I tried now
0:43:20that I'm conscious of it i feel like the first few months I was less conscious of it and now
0:43:24I'm aware of it i don't know i just try to like be much more curious about be more overcompensate
0:43:29be more curious about other people's stuff what they're doing obviously I listen to a bunch of
0:43:33podcasts not in my space like try not to always be in the same space of health probiotics founders
0:43:40all those things get out of that um and make time for like other people and other things that's the
0:43:46biggest thing that's the hardest part but yeah create space for yourself create
0:43:50space for the people that matter love that all right Kiki thank you so much and then we
0:43:56are going to go over to the audience now for some Q&A i have a question kind of related to what you
0:44:02guys were just talking about on burnout so how do you Kiki juggle being the face of social media and
0:44:10doing literally everything else um I mean you can work hard but at a certain point you need
0:44:15to be planning effectively and like wearing a lot of hats so what tools do you use or are you
0:44:20trying to figure that out at this point like in order to stay on top of everything you need to
0:44:24totally that's such a good question for sure use so many tools with social media that's been
0:44:28like the biggest game changer when I was first learning how to do social media it was just like
0:44:33a dayby-day knife fight you know I was just trying to figure out how to make a 45se secondond reel
0:44:39every single day now I actually plan my content the week before and I have content pillars and
0:44:44I sort of think through this is the day I'm going to film a day in my life this is the day that I'm
0:44:49going to do I call Alain makes fun of me but I call it a talking head video when it's just like
0:44:53your head to the screen you know like a talking head this is the day I'm going to do a talking
0:44:56head video on this type of topic this is when I'm going to do these types of stories and then I'm
0:45:00not consumed by it i used to be consumed by I have to be taking footage at every you know point just
0:45:04in case there's no just in case now it's set and it's planned and so that's very very helpful and
0:45:10very important um and then I think I'd go crazy without a co-founder honestly I think having a
0:45:15co-founder has been the best part of this journey is she's my best friend people say don't go into
0:45:20business with your best friend i think like she's the only best friend I would go into business with
0:45:25and it's proven to be very very the right choice and I think we balance each other out and keep
0:45:32each other sane and that mental check of am I prioritizing these things right am I spending
0:45:36too much time on this um so it's one the tool of actually planning out your content and I mean we
0:45:42do the same for how we think about our road map as well and then secondarily having that gut check
0:45:48person to keep you accountable something that's worked for me is planning my days around my energy
0:45:56so if I know that I can do really deep focused work in the mornings which is true it's harder
0:46:00for me to do deep focused work in the afternoons or at night so I scheduled a lot of things around
0:46:08my energy and it takes a while to get there and to learn but um if you know yourself
0:46:13and if you know Monday mornings is better for something and Friday afternoons is better for
0:46:17other things then literally schedule that stuff on your calendar and do the best that you can
0:46:22to adhere to that um amongst all the hundreds and thousands of things that you have going on
0:46:26kiki if you were going to create another product within the product line down the road what do you
0:46:32see it being i get a lot of requests for drinkable yogurt like in a pouch for on the- go so there's
0:46:38something that's interesting there people are already doing it but I think why not try it um
0:46:43so that's one i would love to just be up and down the dairy aisle like I would love to do a
0:46:48really yummy cultured butter i would love to do um actually do like just milk too i think that could
0:46:54be really fun to have like a sour milk milk would be kind of cool and funky um and then yeah the
0:47:00drinkable yogurts I'd say let me ask a question how do you So let's say you want to go down the
0:47:05road with like a sour milk yeah totally
0:47:07how do you reach Midwesterners and say "This is gonna be good."
0:47:12I actually think it's the only way to do it maybe that's a hot take but what do I have
0:47:17over a Chbani what do I have over a Siggies i have literally nothing all they know is that
0:47:23it's yogurt that it's in the yogurt aisle it's a plain yogurt and to them what's the difference
0:47:28between this probiotic or not probiotic to make them take a second look on the yogurt
0:47:34aisle at this weird name called Sour Milk that's literally all that I have is that brand and those
0:47:39two seconds that I get right there and so making people pause for 2 seconds is like our biggest
0:47:45asset right now to get somebody in the Midwest because otherwise we would just fade into the
0:47:50background and maybe we'll turn people off but actually maybe we'll turn some people on which
0:47:55then creates hopefully some virality organic virality through word of mouth through that
0:48:00yeah mulk I think did that really well they did first time I saw Mulk I was like "Huh that's
0:48:04weird." And then I had it and I was like "Oh this is the best almond
0:48:06milk I've ever had." Totally totally you're super passionate about what you
0:48:10do it like illuminates um so I'm really curious how you navigate disagreements
0:48:17on your team even with your co-founder yeah that's a great question by the way
0:48:21my team is just me and my co-founder so the disagreements are the two of us
0:48:26um actually the only disagreement we ever had was over choosing the the new name and we have talked
0:48:35a lot about how do we navigate disagreements and I think we've been lucky to this point where if
0:48:39we're given the same set of information and that's has to be the necessary truth right we have to
0:48:44both be given the same set of information we often will come to the same conclusion because we have
0:48:49no ego about this we're in this for the business because we're both very passionate about this
0:48:53i think where it differs is for us on the name we had like a different set of truths because I'd
0:49:00actually been on the the front lines marketing and she had wanted to go with a safer name and sour
0:49:06milk to us was like the unsafe name and I was like well I'm for the past 6 months I have interacted
0:49:12directly with customers customers every single day and seen what resonated and what doesn't and
0:49:18actually the most uncomfortable things are the things that resonate and get the most attention
0:49:23and yes like likes and views is not necessarily the same as buys but in this economy it kind of is
0:49:30turning into the same sort of thing and so we're now operating with different knowledge and on this
0:49:35one hey I think I have more expertise and it comes from no place of like hey I'm better than you on
0:49:41this it's truly just like where are we coming from and so we had that very honest conversation and it
0:49:46was like yes okay great and so that's sort of the framework that we've always built around
0:49:50this is like what knowledge are we coming to the table with what's the delta between us two and
0:49:55are you maybe more have higher ground here if so okay I trust you enough to actually go with this
0:50:00so you wrestled for it and you won is we wrestled and I won
0:50:03yeah does it creates a roles and responsibilities conversation though especially as you scale and
0:50:09maybe bring on other team members like totally
0:50:11or Yeah
0:50:12yeah cuz I do a lot of work or used to work a lot with my wife and when we got better at
0:50:16working together was when we got clearer on who's responsible for what decision-m totally i mean
0:50:21like she knows everything about product she was a product marketer she was a product manager in her
0:50:26previous life at like a web 3 API company so not yogurt not physical product but comes from she was
0:50:31a computer science major at Stanford is totally an engineer and totally takes the yogurt project
0:50:36like an engineer and has completely engineered the entire recipe figured everything out to the super
0:50:43super small fine details that I'm like totally lost on um and so that's really her area of
0:50:49expertise as well is being very clear on that i had a question that kind of ties into that
0:50:53technical background so if you're a founder and you don't have a technical background in
0:50:58building the product that you're trying to build towards like the co-manufacturing how did you go
0:51:03about picking the right co-manufacturer like how did you navigate that process what kind
0:51:07of questions did you ask what were the qualities that you were looking for i mean we also obviously
0:51:12had no idea before we started so first we made sure we were super prepared going into any of
0:51:18those conversations so we talked to a lot of other CPG founders who had worked with co-manufacturers
0:51:23before so what are the and people who had churned like who had had a bad relationship when and moved
0:51:29to a new one like what were the things that you wish you knew before and so we got really a better
0:51:34understanding from that the biggest things that we were looking for was the partnership so are these
0:51:39people we actually want to work with because we're going to be there and we need to trust them with
0:51:43our product and even if something goes haywire on the processing line do we know that like the end
0:51:48product they will vouch for and that we can trust will be in good shape right so that was number
0:51:54one is who are the people that we're working with will they be willing to meet us where we are right
0:51:58now we're tiny right we're doing 250 gallons of yogurt and we don't even of 250 gallons of milk
0:52:04and we don't even know like our schedule right are we going to be once a month they're going
0:52:07to be once a week we don't know they have to be willing to meet us where we are and a lot of these
0:52:11big factories are not willing to take on a little guy or they're going to really strongarm you and
0:52:16they're going to make you pay insane prices to be there because you're a nuisance to them
0:52:19so we needed to make sure that they would do that and then the third was will they be able to scale
0:52:23with us so there was a lot of small places that we were talking to that they were willing to take us
0:52:26on because they were small and we would actually be a big source of revenue for them but they were
0:52:31not going to be the partner for us in one year and ideally we could hit all those three where
0:52:37they could meet us where we are now and we could scale and we could be at a place where 2 years
0:52:40from now we're doing you know five pallets every 3 days and they're still the right partner for
0:52:46us so those are the biggest things and and then you'd also just have to like vibe check it um hey
0:52:53Kiki so I think a lot of us in this room are found are founders in some way or trying to be founders
0:52:59and and I'm really curious from your perspective if you were to redo um this all over again what
0:53:05would be one of the best decisions that you guys made for your company and what would be one of the
0:53:10less smarter decisions that you guys made so far less smart decisions is not investing in a lawyer
0:53:16at really important times so hence getting the cease and desist that was a situation that was
0:53:23unfortunate we filed 24 hours after the other Benny filed so if we had a lawyer they probably
0:53:31would have caught it there's also still a huge chance that they wouldn't have caught it cuz it
0:53:34was literally 24 hours but we were sort of under the mindset of someone had given us advice you
0:53:41guys can just file your trademark without a lawyer it's actually pretty easy you just have to pay the
0:53:45$350 to the USPTO and we did that and we did our own search but we were not thorough in
0:53:50that search and so pay for legal help when you really needed and now we are lawyered up and we
0:53:57uh paid for legal counsel for our new name and also for our co-man contracts like any contract
0:54:03that we're writing signing all those sorts of things um social media is the biggest thing
0:54:08I would do over and over and over again it's like it's crazy and it's very uncomfortable for
0:54:14me personally like your question about being the face of it i mean I have my own weird like moral
0:54:21ethical I don't know what it is about about like playing into the attention economy and being this
0:54:27like you know vapid influencer or face of things and so that's uncomfortable for me personally
0:54:32but for the business it's like been the best thing that we could have ever done the fact that we sold
0:54:36out of 1500 yogurts in 7 days you know where we had the most high friction buying experience where
0:54:41people had to literally come to us in a random part of New York City to pick up their yogurt
0:54:46that's incredible and we only had that because we actually built a following um I'm curious to hear
0:54:51more about your sources of learning especially as an early founder i think and I just hearing
0:54:57from other founders as well there's a lot of different places where you can get information
0:55:01so I'm curious where you found the most useful like golden nuggets of information is it like
0:55:08googling how to make yogurt you know which a lot of founders do their answer is like I just Google
0:55:13it and I figure it out is it chat GPT in YouTube is it finding a mentor in the space is it calling
0:55:20other co-founders like you did with you know David Bar like what has been the most helpful
0:55:24for you and maybe that has changed as you've kind of gone through different phases but I'm curious
0:55:28to hear about that i mean definitely chat GPT is like the most helpful for us just on business
0:55:33stuff right like how do I get my like New York vendor's license like just stuff like that that
0:55:37you don't even know you need to know um it used to be like so many founder chats because we just
0:55:44needed to understand like the lay of the land now it's specific founders that are in very adjacent
0:55:50or specific like fields so there's two founders that we call all the time one is a frozen cottage
0:55:57cheese company Froco they have they're called Smear Casease joe is awesome and he's in dairy
0:56:03and so that's incredibly helpful and he's it's not cold chain it's refrigerated but it's like similar
0:56:10and so that's been really helpful another is Eli she has a company called Bezi it's a Lavna company
0:56:15here and again it is dairy it is refrigerated cold chain and she is absolutely not doing any shipping
0:56:24and that has been like learning and hearing about her retail strategy and how she's going about this
0:56:29we could talk to David's protein bar we could talk to Poppy we could talk to all the most successful
0:56:33companies they don't have the same path to market as we do and so talking to people who have the
0:56:37same path to market the same types of challenges with their products now that's the helpful thing
0:56:42and we'll probably like David's we took the call because like it's David's protein bar right now
0:56:47and they're like the hottest thing but we're not really doing founder shots other than people who
0:56:52are really in our niches how did you get time with these founders i think people want to help so when
0:56:59you start when I started putting myself out there and said "Hey this is what we're doing." Like
0:57:04and wasn't asking for help but folks sort of like flooded in and offered it being in front of people
0:57:10we met a lot of these people at events and we just went up to them and said "Hey like I'm Kiki we're
0:57:16starting a yogurt company we know nothing about this can you you know would you have time to get
0:57:20coffee who are in the same adjacent industries of dairy blah blah blah you're cornering them you're
0:57:25asking them for a direct ask they're going to say yes right so like being very direct with your ask
0:57:29is very important and then like adding value immediately so a lot of these when we ask for
0:57:35a coffee chat we often will propose like hey for example Bezi she's she'll say this herself she's
0:57:43not good at social media so initially it was like hey I have some tips for you on how to do better
0:57:47at social media here are the things you need to talk about let's get on a call and actually
0:57:50discuss this and so I can provide immediate value to her and then it's worth her time as well
0:57:55yeah and this is I'm guessing all through social media right
0:57:58yes yeah so that's
0:57:59the thing that I've learned with social media if you're a founder or you're starting something
0:58:04the world can feel big and scary as soon as you start posting on social media it actually starts
0:58:09to feel a little bit smaller because you're going to find the other people that are doing the thing
0:58:12that you're doing they find you and you can get help and I think your strategy of adding value
0:58:18and in whatever way that you can and not being a burden is a huge strategy and so social media
0:58:23creates a smaller world and then it also expands your world and it makes everything feel a little
0:58:27bit easier actually uh when you have all these resources behind you and then honestly there's
0:58:32there's this story from entrepreneurs about like oh everyone everyone hated me they said it was
0:58:36too risky they all doubted me that's not been my experience on social media like there's there's
0:58:43people that are out there I'm sure staying silent i haven't had like I've had mostly cheerleaders
0:58:48and people that are like go go go and it's been very helpful being on social media for that
0:58:55i totally agree i think the one thing that you will find with the CPG is like
0:58:59you know in order to hit just a million in revenue I have to sell so many yogurts to get there and
0:59:06so you'll definitely get doubters from like a business perspective so for example when I was at
0:59:10my private equity firm it was like is this really the business that you really want to go into
0:59:14fair that's a very fair comment um but otherwise like no one's doubt everyone's
0:59:18trying to be your cheerleader for sure yeah yeah yeah and you definitely get the doubters
0:59:21and people just don't understand or they've they've walked the walk and but that's part
0:59:25of the journey is you have to do it your way and your way will either be extremely
0:59:30successful or you're going to learn a bunch and you're going to apply that to the next venture
0:59:33yeah exactly i find it very inspirational how you build your marketing as you're building
0:59:38your product and like especially seeing how when you post on social media how people get
0:59:42invested in your product and that all it's only available like in real life at specific
0:59:46like pop-ups and like one of the reasons I came cuz I I really wanted to try the
0:59:49yogurt and it was Yeah it's going to be here yes perfect so I was wondering after you launch do you
0:59:56plan to change your like marketing strategy and do like other things other than like inerson events
1:00:02like expose and like social media or like this because these things work you plan to just like
1:00:07go keep going heavy on them i don't know yet but I think we'll probably keep doing what's working
1:00:14um I think what you said was so on point which is like your superpower your zone of genius is
1:00:20what's fun and what's almost easy for you and play for you and hard for other people and we
1:00:25found that to be the case about the social media and the events and just like the inerson touch
1:00:30points and interactions and so we definitely want to keep those things going i'm sure we'll
1:00:35explain to like you know more UGC or influencer marketing or like all those types of things but
1:00:41to us that feels like a little more inauthentic and also just like a we don't know about that yet
1:00:46you know we're not there yet and so I don't know so as you kind of step into this creator CEO role
1:00:53how do you think about or what's your opinion on the delineation or not of your personal
1:00:59brand versus Sour Milk's brand as you continue to scale and grow thought a lot about that because
1:01:04I'm building from my personal account versus Sour Milk's account and to me they feel distinct and I
1:01:11sort of see my Instagram and Tik Tok is CouchWoman cuz my last name is Couch Man and Couch Woman
1:01:18it's a great it's a great Thank you thank you it is good
1:01:21i've like held on to it since like freshman year of high school and never letting go you know um I
1:01:26see that as like really at least for Sour Milk right now like top of funnel it's it's an area
1:01:31where I can capture people who are interested in what it's like to be like a 26-year-old living in
1:01:36the West Village in Manhattan who's quitting their job who is disgruntled with their finance job and
1:01:41wants to do something else and maybe didn't even think they were interested in yogurt and now are
1:01:46super invested and super interested in yogurt and now they'll check out sour milk and so that's
1:01:50currently how I'm using it definitely it will evolve and it's given me much more latitude to
1:01:58run with things that I wouldn't be able to do on Sour Milk's account so brand building with Sour
1:02:03Milk looks really different than brand building with Couchwoman i get to try Chabbani and tell
1:02:07you it tastes really bad and there's a lot of shitty things in it as Couchoman as Sour Milk
1:02:12like I don't know if I want to stand for that as that type of brand um as couchwoman I also get
1:02:17to talk about like this sucks i feel burnt out i am like kind of recovering from a cold right
1:02:22now if you can't hear and I had four events this weekend and we did 150 drop offs i'm really tired
1:02:28from Sour Milk's account like that's not going to be the same exact narrative and so I don't
1:02:33know like if there will be a next venture or what that looks like but right now Couchwoman gets to
1:02:38be a much more authentic sort of space for me as CEO and co-founder of a yogurt company not me as
1:02:46Kiki and that's a sort of separate conversation too where I've had to be very like distinct with
1:02:51that boundary as well i used to post a lot about myself personally and now it's just sort of like
1:02:56linkedified if that makes sense yeah as a followup I was actually
1:03:00going to ask how do you think about the authenticity of your personal brand now
1:03:04i think authenticity doesn't need to be like wholly consuming like you can be authentic but
1:03:09still only show 25% of who you are um so it's not that I'm necessarily it's not that it's
1:03:15inauthentic because it's not showing a 100% of me you don't know who my sister is all the time where
1:03:19my family is that I grew up on a dairy I didn't grow up on a dairy farm that my dad grew up on a
1:03:23dairy farm um like that I'm half Chinese like all these things they don't need to necessarily be on
1:03:29couchwoman to still be an authentic version of part of who I am and so I just think about like
1:03:34me in this co-founder seat what are my authentic opinions about this thing how am I authentically
1:03:38feeling about this thing and those need to be captured through CouchWoman not all my identity
1:03:45needs to be captured through Couchwoman i think about Alex Herozi when this question
1:03:49comes up because it comes up a lot do I should I do my personal account should I have my business
1:03:52account or how do I do that and I think about Alex Heroszi how many businesses does Alex have
1:03:58do we know he probably has 10 right a lot
1:04:01a lot do you do you follow Acquisition.com or do you follow Alex right
1:04:06who are you buying from you're buying from Alex just because he has other products and businesses
1:04:11that you end up actually buying from just because it's a piece of paper that was filed to the state
1:04:16you know I know that sour milk is more than that but ultimately and your personal brand
1:04:20will go with you wherever you go whether it's sour milk or something else or anything else
1:04:25and I think like that's to me it's like oh it's not necessarily about that but I do think people
1:04:31really do follow people and not brands like people follow Elon Musk and they know who that
1:04:35is and they know what Tesla is but like they know who Musk is right or like Donald Trump
1:04:40versus the Republican party or like these like crazy figures i'm not trying to be those like
1:04:45those types of people but there's definitely something about the power of the person and
1:04:49the personal brand versus the actual institution or like company or bigger organization behind it
1:04:57how long did it take you to get over the cringe of just like seeing yourself online and what are like
1:05:04the practical steps you took to actually like get engagement in the first month of posting because
1:05:10obviously it's a huge part of your brand and I myself I was a very early follower and yeah I
1:05:16very much admire that part of it it's so cringey um I still really struggle with that for what it's
1:05:22worth like the feeling of you know pointing at someone's video and you're like laughing at it
1:05:27because they get like 20 likes and I know that I'm that person for like a lot of people but
1:05:33you just have to get over it um I posted I made a commitment to post practically I made a commitment
1:05:39to post every single day for three months so 90 days one video a day you just got to do it Kiki
1:05:45i don't care and I started on Tik Tok because Tik Tok felt more anonymous than Instagram because I
1:05:50like co-opted my personal Instagram account to do this so I started on Tik Tok i started
1:05:54a month before and that gave me the confidence to then just go and do it on Instagram and everyone
1:06:00told me "Hey your customers on Instagram they're not on Tik Tok they're going to be a higher price
1:06:03point buyer they're going to be a little older like they just you got to get on Instagram."
1:06:08So that was number one do it every single day what that forced I couldn't I was not allowed
1:06:13to tell myself I'm bad at this until I did that for 3 months because I did not have enough data
1:06:18to tell myself I was bad at it so until I posted 90 videos like you're just someone who's posting
1:06:2620 videos like you're not good or bad you have no idea you know whether you are or not and so
1:06:3290 videos gave me a benchmark to actually look at what was working what was not and then from
1:06:37there and that was like January 1 from there I was able to really hone in on this is what's working
1:06:43and this is not so that was like the first big tunch was like just get through that and you just
1:06:48can't judge yourself and you just have to throw spaghetti at the wall and see what works and then
1:06:52from there it was about crafting the video so through that process I started following a lot
1:06:58of people who do a lot of content creation type stuff and really learned about visual
1:07:03hooks learned about verbal hooks learned about storytelling learned about you know creating a
1:07:07villain in the story and how do you get over that and overcome it how do you make someone
1:07:10actually convert to a follower those types of things uh but you'll learn those things as you
1:07:15go i think the biggest thing is actually just sort of the exposure therapy honestly
1:07:19a smaller first step if that feels too big sorry was that a really big
1:07:23That was a great No that's how like that's how all the content creators that's the advice
1:07:28that they give you just basically gave sort of a little bit of a master class and have started so
1:07:33but a smaller first step is through Instagram stories because stories go away in 24 hours
1:07:39if you can post three stories a day maybe one of you actually looking at the camera and talking
1:07:45to it and try to get better every single day it goes away in 24 hours but your followers
1:07:50your existing followers will tell you what they like and what they don't like you'll see some
1:07:53engagement and you just start to get better the next step could be going live every week
1:07:58oh my gosh I've never been live you should you should
1:08:01no that's so scary once a week go live
1:08:03what do you talk about you just talk about what
1:08:06you're doing you show you're at a pickup and then maybe you can do some Q&A like this
1:08:10oh my gosh you should try going live yeah you should try
1:08:12try going live oh gosh see that seems scary to me yeah but that's the thing it's all reps it's all
1:08:17reps yeah the one other thing that I'll add to that is through those 90 days that I had exposure
1:08:23therapy for myself I was able to figure out a style i wouldn't have been able to figure out a
1:08:28style if I just did one a week cuz I would have endless time i would have seven days to work on
1:08:32one video and I could make it amazing and perfect and all these things when you're forced to make a
1:08:37video in 24 hours I mean honestly like uh like 3 hours because I was working during that time you
1:08:43have to figure out what's authentic to you what comes easy what comes natural what resonates with
1:08:47you personally cuz you're not going to be able to keep this up if it is really hard and takes
1:08:51a very long time cuz my job is not video editor my job is co-founder and you know building a
1:08:57company and so you had to I was forced to figure out the thing that fit into my life as part of it
1:09:02what's the point of what you're trying to say tell a little story and then reiterate
1:09:07the point always how are you bringing value to the person who's watching
1:09:11it's the biggest thing be very ruthless about that is like how is this valuable
1:09:15there there'll be times when I make something I'm like scrap this is it's not
1:09:19valuable actually I'm just saying something I want to say nobody wants to hear this so
1:09:24how do you decide what's valuable and and I follow up cuz like you're telling a story right and it's
1:09:31kind of your journey about how you're doing it so who is the audience that you're trying to create
1:09:37value for do you have someone specific in mind like a like ICP like an avatar that you're talking
1:09:43to or is it just I think this might be valuable there's two types of value one I think about is
1:09:50reach so like what's something that's going to be sort of like mass valuable I guess and mass
1:09:57create an emotion to me that's the biggest thing is when I want to get more reach I want to create
1:10:01an emotion um and then there's the niche value of like how do I serve my existing customer base and
1:10:07my existing customer base is here because they're invested in this yogurt journey and so what's the
1:10:12thing that's on my mind about like decision making or how I'm going through this so those are usually
1:10:18like the two vectors I think about it through is like serving base versus getting more reach
1:10:24yeah i have a question so it's interesting story about the yogurt in the world in in New York City
1:10:31yeah i just like wondering how did you figure out the product market fit did you start talking to
1:10:37your friends and family or you actually went to the yogurt or you went like to the stores
1:10:42like Choban and say you know what I have a secret formula for you but the yogurt better
1:10:49life we conducted about 150 customer interviews before we ever even decided to quit our jobs or
1:10:55leave or anything like that so I say like we started with the customers first we talked to
1:11:02none of none of which were our friends but we talked to our friends hey do you know someone
1:11:05who's a big yogurt eater in your life hey do you know someone Yeah Damen is a huge yogurt eater
1:11:10um like one of my friends fiances eats the 32 oz like tub of yogurt he pours
1:11:18a whole thing of blueberries into the yogurt and just eats that for breakfast
1:11:21every morning insane that's so much yogurt it's a lot of yogurt but we started talking to
1:11:28those people and we had a set list of 15 interview questions that we asked them and we ran through
1:11:34that and our goal was to do 15 interviews a day this was like about a year ago now each of us and
1:11:40then we really got to understand okay what's the white space does this have resonance or not then
1:11:45Alain had sort of like a MVP recipe that she made on a stove top kitchen not fully legal to sell but
1:11:51we sold and we saw okay would people buy this like are people actually buying this would our friends
1:11:56and family buy this that's the biggest thing is like don't just give product away like will
1:12:01people buy because you want to know is there a willingness to pay and that's like really actually
1:12:05product market fit and then we just sort of kept iterating and going on that but we had enough
1:12:11conviction through those conversations and also through like enough early purchases to understand
1:12:17that there are people here that would continue to buy um how do you deal with criticism and how
1:12:24do you decide when to take action on it versus kind of stay true to what you're doing because
1:12:30I think you have an aspect of like you're you're online you have a lot of people looking at what
1:12:36you're doing and have like a really easy ability to comment on that and give their own view but
1:12:41then you're also building a an edible product where people have very personal preferences so
1:12:48you can get feedback for both of those kind of like avenues and how do you decide like oh you
1:12:56know someone's not liking the taste of this yogurt you know do I do something about it or something
1:13:01someone's giving me feedback on this aspect on my kind of marketing or video style like do I
1:13:07take action on that or no that's just a personal preference you know it's also a space where both
1:13:11online and you know for food choices people have very very personal preferences like how do How
1:13:18do you decide when to listen to that well I think you just said it is like so many people have just
1:13:22very personalized and specific weird styles and habits and choices and I think that's why there
1:13:28are so many CPG brands like so many food brands so many consumer brands is because there's always
1:13:32more of the market to cut out for yourself because people will resonate with your product so I don't
1:13:39know that there's a direct formula for actually choosing what we listen to or what we don't but
1:13:45it's pretty clear when they're an outlier I would say and and I think that's the biggest thing is if
1:13:50you're getting you know a little bit of negative feedback but 80% is positive and that 80% is in
1:13:56line with our vision and where we're going we're not going to over rotate towards those 20% but you
1:14:02know we had a very real conversation with like moms the other day moms is a target audience we
1:14:07really want to go after that we haven't tapped into is this packaging and is this branding and
1:14:12is this vibe resonating with you all and we had some like good feedback that came from
1:14:17that that's a small percentage of our customer base right now but it's one we want to grow into
1:14:22and so that's one that we listened to because we actually want to go after that and that's sort of
1:14:26an aspirational part of the market that we want to go to so it has to be in line with where you
1:14:31want to take the company and then you have to sort of sift through the feedback layering on that all
1:14:36right Key final question before we dig into the yogurt and we sell you out of your first batch
1:14:41this is a pretty special moment by the way this is your first ever batch and we get the last 50
1:14:46containers here so uh last question what is the thing that you're most proud of to date
1:14:51this is so like smooshy but my relationship with my co-founder i am so proud that Alain and I have
1:14:59stayed such close best friends through all of this we have a 4 and a half drive 4 and a half
1:15:05hour drive to Ithaca on Wednesday and then back on Friday and I'm so excited for that drive cuz we
1:15:11just get to hang out talk to each other we get to weave in and out of sour milk and business topics
1:15:17back to our personal lives and everything that's going on and I was nervous that we wouldn't be
1:15:22able to maintain the level of intimacy and just closeness that we have with each other as best
1:15:28friends and we really have and we've strengthened it and we've been able to challenge each other in
1:15:32ways that I didn't know someone would challenge me in that type of way other than you know my partner
1:15:39and so that has been I think the most proud thing well it's clear that you're extremely passionate
1:15:47and you're going to be super successful like I can just feel it i think everyone
1:15:51here can feel it too so I I thank you so much follow you at CouchWoman yes
1:15:56is that the best place any other places you want people to go to come check you out
1:15:59couchwoman on Tik Tok and Instagram gets sourmilk on Tik Tok and Instagram
1:16:04as well um and then we also post a lot on LinkedIn you can add us on LinkedIn
1:16:09right and I'm Cassidy Warren you can follow me at Cassidy.warren on Instagram and
1:16:13uh as always I appreciate all of you i love all of you and this has been for your own good
1:16:19[Applause]
The systems behind these conversations — the deal underwriting, the tax strategy, the operators doing it live — are in Escape Velocity.