The Irresistible Factor

Hosted by Kristi Bridges

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198

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Oct 2026

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About the show

The Irresistible Factor Podcast focuses on brands in the health and wellness space that want to become irresistible to consumers, investors and retailers. Kristi Bridges is the President and CEO of The Sawtooth Group where she has worked for over 20 years to create innovative, relevant strategies to bring brands and their consumers closer together. She is one of the creators of I-Factor®, the first and only research tool designed to understand today's digital consumer's relationship to brands.

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October 21, 202638 min

From Restaurant Crisis to 50,000 Frozen Pizzas: Katie Lee's Unexpected Success Story

When COVID shut down Katie Lee's restaurants, she had one goal: keep her business alive and her employees working. Within two days, her team had developed a frozen version of their wood-fired pizza. Six weeks later, they'd sold approximately 50,000 pizzas. What started as a desperate pivot became an entirely new business. In this episode of The Irresistible Factor , Kristi Bridges sits down with Katie Lee, founder of Katie's Pizza, to talk about her remarkable journey from restaurateur to building a national frozen pizza brand. Katie shares what it took to turn restaurant-quality, handmade pizza into a retail product, land a major deal with Target, and navigate the enormous challenges of scaling without compromising what makes her product special. But this conversation goes well beyond pizza. Katie opens up about her personal journey, getting sober, rebuilding her life, and the determination that drives her forward. She talks candidly about the pressures of entrepreneurship, the realities of rapid growth, and why she actually loves hearing the word no. It's a conversation about resilience, reinvention, taking risks, and what it really takes to build something you believe in. Because sometimes the business you were meant to build isn't the one you started with.

October 13, 202643 min

Aletha Health with Founder Christine Annie

Before You Make It, Make Sure Someone Will Buy It. People saying they'd buy your product means nothing until they actually do. And confusing enthusiasm with demand can be a very expensive mistake. On this episode of The Irresistible Factor , I talk with Christine Annie, founder of Aletha Health , about the difference between having a great idea and proving there's a market for it. Before manufacturing her product, the HIP Hook, Christine created a prototype, launched a simple campaign, and asked people to put down a dollar to reserve one. About 5,000 people did. That's the difference between encouragement and evidence. We also talk about: Why curiosity and a willingness to learn are essential for founders. How Christine is using AI to transform the way her business operates. Why AI is only as valuable as the questions we ask and the judgment we bring. Why human connection may become even more valuable in an increasingly digital world. Founders need conviction. But they also need validation. Sometimes the smartest thing you can do before building your idea is give people a chance to prove they want it. Then you build.

September 9, 202636 min

Maïzly with Tim Leclercq

The instinct that makes you a successful founder can become the thing that keeps your brand small. Founders are wired to see opportunity. Actually, they have to be. They see a product that doesn't exist yet and think, Why not? A retailer shows interest? Go. A new channel opens up? Try it. A new product you could make? Let's make it. That relentless belief in possibility is often exactly what gets a brand off the ground. But eventually, possibility becomes the problem. I had a great conversation with Tim Leclercq, co-founder and CEO of Maïzly, a completely new kind of plant-based milk made from corn. It took four years and more than 125 iterations just to get the product right. Then came the opportunities. Grocery. Coffee shops. Bakeries. Foodservice. E-commerce. New markets. Meanwhile, Tim and his team had developed other products they could launch, including yogurt, cooking cream and eggnog. And then there's perhaps the most compelling opportunity of all. They developed an infant formula designed to give mothers in parts of Africa access to affordable, safe nutrition for their babies. They parked it. Not because it wasn't a good idea. Not because it failed. Because they couldn't do everything. They had to say no to something they deeply believed in. I asked Tim how he decides what not to pursue when there are opportunities everywhere and dollars are limited. His answer: “That’s probably the thing I’ve battled with the most.” Of course it is. Because that's one of the great tensions of entrepreneurship: Starting rewards possibility. Scaling rewards restraint. At some point, the question has to change from: “Could this work?” to: “Is this what matters most right now?” There will always be another retailer. Another channel. Another product. Another partnership. Another really good idea. The hard part isn't finding opportunities. It's having the conviction to leave good ones on the table. Sometimes the most ambitious thing you can say is: Great idea. Not yet.

August 18, 202640 min

De Soi with Morgan McLachlan

One sentence from my conversation with Morgan McLachlan has been stuck in my head: "We're outsourcing our wisdom." It's easy to hear that as an argument against AI. It's not. It's a reminder that technology can accelerate our thinking, but it can't replace our judgment. As founders and marketers, we're asking AI to write, research, brainstorm, analyze, summarize—even tell us what strategy to pursue. Those are all valuable uses. But somewhere along the way, many of us stopped wrestling with the hard questions ourselves. That's where judgment is built.Morgan isn't anti-AI. Neither am I. I use it every single day. But the brands that will win over the next decade won't be the ones using AI to make decisions.. They'll be the ones using it to make their decisions better. That distinction matters. Because the next competitive advantage won't be content. It won't be speed. It will be judgment. If you're building a brand, leading a team, or making decisions that shape the future of your business, I think you'll enjoy this conversation with Morgan. It challenged the way I think about AI, creativity, and what it means to build something that lasts.

July 15, 202640 min

Seattle Chocolate with Jean Thompson

Jean Thompson did not plan to run a chocolate company. She just couldn’t let it die. Jean was an early investor in Seattle Chocolate when an earthquake destroyed the building the company was renting. No earthquake insurance. Broken machinery. A condemned building. A business that might not survive. So she stepped in. Not because she had a grand plan.Because she loved the brand and didn’t want to watch it disappear. That decision turned into a 23-year journey as CEO. What started as “maybe I can help 10 or 20 hours a week” became a full reinvention of a great chocolate company. Jean rebuilt the team. Learned manufacturing in real time. Figured out cash flow the hard way. And eventually turned Seattle Chocolate into a profitable, nationally distributed brand. But the part I loved most? She didn’t stop evolving it. Seattle Chocolate became Maeve — a bold, colorful, woman-owned brand named after an Irish warrior queen. A risky move for a 35-year-old company. And it also turned out to be the right one. Because sometimes a brand doesn’t need to walk away from its past. It just needs to walk toward a bigger future. And Jean’s story is such a good reminder: You don’t always need to know exactly where you’re going at the beginning. Sometimes you just need to care enough not to walk away. Jean is bold, direct, and refreshingly honest about what it really takes to build—and rebuild—a brand. I came away from this conversation reminded that great companies aren't built by people who never doubt themselves. They're built by people who keep going anyway.

June 10, 202647 min

Choulie with Alison Cayne

She had the distribution. She had the buyers. She had the product. And she shut it down anyway. This week on The Irresistible Factor, I welcomed back Alison Cayne . A few years ago, she came on the podcast to talk about building Haven's Kitchen. This time, she came back to talk about something founders rarely discuss publicly: How she knew it was time to walk away. What struck me most was that this wasn't a failed business. The brand was loved. The products were loved. Retailers were still asking for it. Buyers were still calling. But Alison saw something many founders refuse to see: A great brand and a great product aren't enough if the business model doesn't work. One line from the conversation stayed with me: "A business is a three-legged stool: product, brand, and business." She had two of the three. And she was honest enough to admit it. That takes courage. But the reason I wanted her back wasn't just to talk about what ended. It was to talk about what comes next. Because after shutting down Haven's Kitchen, Alison didn't disappear. She spent time unpacking what worked, what didn't, and what she wanted her next chapter to look like. The result is Choulie. A fragrance-infused body oil brand built for women who are tired of being told they have a problem to solve. What fascinated me was how intentionally she approached this next business. A channel she controls. Better margins. Less operational complexity. A customer she knows intimately because she is the customer. In many ways, Choulie feels like the product of everything she learned building Haven's Kitchen. Not a pivot. An evolution. There was another part of the conversation I couldn't stop thinking about. Alison talked about interviewing dozens of women in midlife and realizing there was a false choice being presented: Either fight aging with everything you've got. Or stop caring altogether. Her belief? Most women are somewhere in the middle. They want products that make them feel good. Look good. Smell good. Without being told they're broken, aging incorrectly, or in need of fixing. That's a much bigger insight than fragrance. It's a perspective on how an entire generation of women wants to be seen. The whole conversation is packed with founder lessons, but my favorite may have been this: "The standards you accept become your standards." That's true in business. It's true in leadership. And it's true in life. We spend a lot of time celebrating founders who never quit. Maybe we should spend a little more time celebrating founders who know when to stop, learn, and build something better.

May 28, 202645 min

Harmony Baby Nutrition with Del Afonso

“We’re Not Building for Scale. We’re Building for Disruption.” I’ve interviewed a lot of founders, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say that before. And, it completely changed the way I thought about this conversation with Del Alfonso, founder of Harmony Baby Nutrition. Because most founders talk about scale as the goal: More stores.More distribution.More volume. Del talked about changing an industry that hasn’t meaningfully evolved in 100 years. When you really think about that, it’s kind of shocking. We’ve reinvented almost everything: beverages, functional nutrition, supplements, and snacks. And yet infant formula, one of the most emotionally charged, scientifically important products in the world, is still largely dominated by the same few companies, using the same approaches, and the same outdated systems. That’s wild. Especially when one out of five babies using traditional cow’s milk formula experiences some form of allergic reaction. Del started this company because his daughter needed help. And he had a realization: There really weren’t good alternatives. Not modern ones. Not science-forward ones. Not products designed around what we now know about infant nutrition. So he decided to build one. It’s not just better science. It ’s better to have empathy. And that is real disruption. What I loved about Del’s perspective is that he’s not trying to out-scale the incumbents. He openly said they can’t compete on scale. But what they can do matters. Harmony can innovate faster, support parents better, and rethink the category from the ground up. That’s a very different mindset than most founders have (and maybe a healthier one too). Probably a healthier one. Because scale without innovation is really maintenance. And Real disruption changes industries. And this category is overdue. Have a listen.

May 20, 202647 min

Altar Native with Yasmin Crystal Santos

“Let It Be Easy.” “Let it be easy.” That was one of my favorite moments from my conversation with Yasmin Crystal Santos, founder of Altar Native. Not because building a company is easy. Clearly, it’s not. She’s dealing with: inventory shortages changing manufacturers regulatory hurdles fundraising decisions international expansion And somehow… she still feels calm. Not passive. Not naive. Calm. And that felt almost more disruptive than the category she’s building in. Yasmin created a line of herbal alcohol alternatives after realizing alcohol no longer gave her what she was actually looking for: relief, regulation, a state shift. What started as personal survival eventually became a brand. But the bigger idea underneath it is what stayed with me: People are overwhelmed. And most of us are trying to regulate ourselves with the wrong tools. What also struck me: She doesn’t sound like most founders. No frantic “crush it at all costs” energy. No obsession with scaling as fast as possible. In fact, she openly talks about staying lean and avoiding over-raising. And yet: two social posts went viral inventory sold out international demand started pouring in She used this metaphor I loved: Bamboo spends years building roots underground before it suddenly shoots up into the sky. Most founders want the growth part. Very few have the patience for the roots. The biggest takeaway for me wasn’t really about herbalism or functional beverages. It was this: You can build something ambitious without believing you have to destroy yourself in the process. And I think more founders need to hear that. This episode stayed with me long after we stopped recording.

May 14, 202641 min

Brutus Broth with Kim Hehir

“If Someone Slams the Front Door in Your Face, Go to the Back Door.” That was one of my favorite lines from my conversation with Kim Hehir, co-founder of Brutus Broth. And honestly? It might be one of the best descriptions of entrepreneurship I’ve heard in a while. Because Brutus Broth didn’t grow into a 20,000-store brand by following the traditional playbook. They grew because they kept asking. Kept testing. Kept pushing. Kept finding another way in. Even when people told them that’s “not how it works.” One of the stories I LOVED was about an early Petco meeting. Kim asked when they could get on the shelf. Their broker was horrified because apparently, you’re not supposed to ask that question. But Kim didn’t know, and so she asked anyway. And guess what? They got the placement. And that mindset shows up throughout the entire story. Target said no at first. Brutus found another way in. Walmart approached them too early. They had the discipline to say no because they weren’t ready. And guess what? Walmart came back later with a completely different vision for the pet aisle and became a major partnership for the brand. That’s not luck. That’s founder energy paired with conviction. What’s also interesting is that they didn’t build like a typical pet brand. Most brands in the category start DTC. Brutus didn’t. Their hero product was a 32-ounce liquid broth—heavy and expensive to ship. So instead, they beta tested through retail with Wegmans and Big Y before scaling. And they weren’t just looking at velocity. They paid attention to all the things retailers care about: Did the product bring new shoppers into the aisle? Did it increase basket size? Was it incremental to existing purchases? That’s a really smart lesson for emerging brands. Retailers care if your product sells. And they also care about other things, like what your product does for the store at large? And the other big tension, building awareness. Brutus Broth is now in 20,000 stores. They have strong retail relationships. New products. Momentum. But still, Kim kept coming back to the same challenge: More people need to know who they are. I think that’s one of the hardest transitions for emerging brands. Getting distribution is hard. But creating sustained consumer demand at scale? That’s a completely different challenge that EVERY brand has to tackle at some point. And that takes something most founders are in short supply of, time and patience. My biggest takeaway from this conversation: The founders who win are not always the ones following the category playbook most perfectly. Sometimes they’re the ones willing to: ask the uncomfortable question challenge assumptions use the data differently keep going after hearing “no” And maybe most importantly: They don’t confuse “that’s how it’s usually done” with “that’s the only way it gets done.” As marketers, we spend a lot of time talking about innovation, disruption, and growth strategy. But a surprising amount of entrepreneurship is still this simple: Ask. Follow up. Ask again. Find another way. Definitely worth a listen!

May 6, 202649 min

Vine to Bar with Ed Klein and Scott Forsberg

Sold a Little. Learned a Lot. Most brands try to skip this part. They go straight to scale. More distribution. More spend. More everything. And then wonder why nothing sticks. I interviewed Scott Forsberg and Ed Klein on the podcast this week, the founders behind a chocolate brand called Vine to Bar. On the surface, it’s already a great story: Upcycled Chardonnay grapes Science-backed benefits Better-for-you chocolate But that’s not the most interesting part. The most compelling part Is what they didn’t do They had everything you could want in a brand: Taste Health Sustainability A strong founder story Real science (not marketing fluff) Most brands would take that… and try to say all of it. They did that too—at first. And it didn’t work. So They Did What Most Founders Don’t. They slowed down. They tested. They paid attention. They sold a little and learned a lot. And what they learned changed everything. The Shift They had multiple directions they could go: Wine + chocolate lifestyle. General “better for you”. Cardiovascular health All valid. None of them landed. But one did. Gut health. That shift didn’t change the product. It changed the focus . And it unlocked the business. Most founders think more is better. More SKUs. More claims. More messaging This brand isn’t growing because it has more. It’s growing because it’s focused enough for people to care. A Final Thought You don’t need more ideas. You need to figure out: What people understand instantly What they actually care about What makes them come back And then stay there long enough for it to work. Most brands won’t do that.Because it feels slower. But it’s the way things stick. If you’re building something right now, this one’s worth a listen.

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