The Story of a Brand Show

Hosted by CommerceFocused Media, Inc.

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300

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Jun 2026

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About the show

Welcome to The Story Of A Brand Show. Hear the unique entrepreneurial journeys of 1000+ Consumer Brand founders. We tap into the doubts, failures, wins and inspirations that come with building Consumer Brand startups in extremely competitive times. Whether you own a brand or work for one, you will learn from our guests as they share the building blocks of their brand's evolution. Who knows, you may even discover a few new products that become faves.

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60 recent

June 12, 2026Episode 138855 min

Taza Chocolate - Stay True to the Craft. Outlast the Competition

A flood destroyed the factory, the FDA shut them down, and the company had almost no cash and then something remarkable happened. Ramon Vela sits down with Alex Whitmore, Founder & CEO of Taza Chocolate, for a deeply human conversation about twenty-plus years of stone-ground, mission-driven chocolate making in Somerville, Massachusetts. From a transformative trip to Oaxaca to pioneering direct trade relationships with cocoa farmers in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Alex's story is one of the most compelling in the specialty food world. * The flood that almost ended everything. Just a few years into building Taza, a freak thunderstorm flooded the factory, destroyed inventory, and triggered an FDA shutdown. What happened next surprised even Alex: suppliers, customers, landlord, and community all showed up. That moment taught him that business is deeply human at its core. * A trip to Oaxaca that changed everything. The name Taza comes from "taza de chocolate," a traditional Mexican drinking chocolate. After visiting stone mills in southern Mexico in his twenties, Alex came home and built the only company in America making chocolate on traditional Mexicano stone mills — and that founding commitment still defines every bar made today. * Direct trade before it was a trend. Taza built relationships directly with cocoa farmers, paying above fair trade prices and publishing an annual transparency report. When the global cocoa crisis hit and prices spiked, those long-standing farmer relationships became a genuine competitive and operational lifeline. * Twenty years of staying independent. Taza raised only $120,000 at the start and never chased outside capital. Alex walks through what two decades of bootstrapping in an intensely competitive specialty food category actually teaches you about patience, resilience, and staying true to your craft. * Start with the Wicked Dark. Taza's number one seller is a 95% dark chocolate bar made with cocoa beans from the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Alex also points new fans to the Mexican Style Chocolate Discs, the product that best captures who Taza has always been. Join us in listening to this episode for a rich and genuinely moving conversation about craft, community, and what it means to build a brand with deep roots and unshakeable values over two decades. Whether you are a chocolate lover, a founder, or someone who just needs a reminder of why the mission matters, this one will stay with you. Visit: https://www.tazachocolate.com/ If you enjoyed this episode, please leave The Story of a Brand Show a rating and review. Plus, don't forget to follow us on Apple and Spotify. Your support helps us bring you more content like this! * Today's Sponsors: Saral - The Influencer OS: https://www.getsaral.com/demo SARAL is the all-in-one influencer platform that finds brand-aligned creators, automates outreach, and manages everything in one place. Request a live demo today. Let the SARAL team know you're a The Story of a Brand Show podcast listener to get an extended free trial! Visit the link above.

June 10, 2026Episode 138740 min

I and Love and You - The Operator's Playbook for Pet

Pet food looks like a food category, but it behaves like a trust category and nobody understands that better than Michael Meyer. Rose Hamilton, CEO of Compass Rose Ventures and co-host of The Story of a Brand Show, sits down with Michael for an operator masterclass that goes far beyond pet food into the deeper mechanics of how premium consumer brands get built, scaled, and sustained. With experience across Wellness Pet Food, Plum Organics, Restoration Hardware, I and Love and You, and Just Food for Dogs, Michael brings a rare pattern recognition that every founder, operator, and investor needs to hear. * Pet food is a trust category, not a food category. The dog or cat either eats it or doesn't. The pet parent either feels reassured or doesn't. Repeat purchase is the only real trust metric that matters, and building toward it requires discipline most brands skip. * Cats are the most underbuilt opportunity in premium pets. All the innovation went to dogs. Cat parents were always emotionally invested; the category just never gave them enough ways to express it. That is changing now, and it has to be intentional to work. * The Bobby Flay lesson every founder needs. Celebrity partnerships only work when they make the product promise more believable. Made by Nacho added depth to an existing thesis. It was not motion for motion's sake. * Distribution is not demand. Awareness is not trust. Getting on shelf is not the win. Turning and staying on shelf is the business. Scaling before your system is ready does not create growth, it creates expensive complexity. * Don't rush it. Michael's sharpest advice for founders under pressure to scale: take a breath, think it through, then come back. Speed without clarity is one of the most costly mistakes a growing brand can make. Join us in listening to this episode for one of the most practically useful operator conversations the show has ever produced. Rose and Michael cover category signals, acquisition lessons, channel strategy, celebrity partnerships, and the discipline required to scale without breaking what you built. Whether you are a founder, an operator, or an investor, this one will sharpen how you think about building consumer brands that last. For more on I and Love and You visit: https://iandloveandyou.com/ If you enjoyed this episode, please leave The Story of a Brand Show a rating and review. Plus, don't forget to follow us on Apple and Spotify. Your support helps us bring you more content like this!

June 3, 2026Episode 138649 min

Apothékary - She Left Wall Street to Redefine Wellness

She left Goldman Sachs, moved to Mozambique for a year, and came back to build one of the most distinct wellness brands in America. Rose Hamilton, CEO of Compass Rose Ventures and co-host of The Story of a Brand Show, sits down with Shizu Okusa, Founder & CEO of Apothékary, for a masterclass in what it really means to build a brand system not just a product line. From a New York City billboard to a Series A close, Apothékary is proof that deep roots and radical clarity can outpace any amount of paid media spend. * Three iterations before liftoff. Apothékary started as a pop-up store rooted in Ayurveda, evolved into powders, and eventually landed on liquid supplements, a format Shizu now considers a near-monopoly position. The lesson: your first product is almost never your final one. * Heritage as an operating system, not a mood board. Shizu's Japanese roots show up in how the company hires, iterates, and moves; guided by the principle of Kaizen, continuous improvement. It's not packaging. It's how the business runs. * TikTok crossed a million dollars a month and here's why. Apothékary's TikTok success isn't about chasing the algorithm. It's built on 20,000+ affiliates creating education-first content around a visually distinctive blue liquid dropper that stops the scroll and earns the click. * Retail forced brutal clarity. Entering Whole Foods, Sprouts, and The Vitamin Shoppe forced Apothékary to put ingredient benefits bigger than the brand name on packaging. The consumer doesn't have time for your founder story in the aisle and that discipline makes the brand stronger everywhere. * Distribution is the moat. In a category where products get copied, Shizu's sharpest insight is that the real defensibility is distribution, the ability to play in grocery, health care, and beauty simultaneously, backed by proprietary formulas and Shiseido as a strategic investor. Join us in listening to this episode for one of the most intellectually rigorous and practically useful brand conversations we've had on the show. Rose and Shizu cover signal, thesis, behavior, and proof, the four pillars of a brand that becomes easier to understand and harder to copy over time. Whether you're a founder, an operator, or an investor, this one will sharpen how you think. For more on Apothékary visit: https://www.apothekary.com/ If you enjoyed this episode, please leave The Story of a Brand Show a rating and review. Plus, don't forget to follow us on Apple and Spotify. Your support helps us bring you more content like this!

June 2, 2026Episode 13851 hr 4 min

Eli Health - Your Hormones Are Talking. Are You Listening?

Most people get their hormone levels tested once a year — if they think about it at all. Marina Pavlovic Rivas, Co-Founder & CEO of Eli Health, is on a mission to change that. Ramon Vela sits down with Marina for a fascinating conversation about the technology she spent nearly seven years building: a saliva-based, at-home hormone monitoring platform that delivers cortisol, testosterone, and progesterone results to your phone in minutes, giving people real-time visibility into one of the most overlooked dimensions of their health. * The gap nobody was solving. After searching online for a way to track her own hormonal data, Marina realized the product didn't exist. So she built it, spending more than six years on R&D, regulatory approval, and venture capital before bringing it to market. * Hormones affect everything, not just fertility. From energy and mood to sleep, libido, bone health, cardiac health, and cognitive performance, Marina breaks down why hormonal data is one of the most important and most underused signals in personal wellness. * The wearable parallel that puts it all in context. Checking your hormones once a year is like measuring your heartbeat once a year: technically useful, but dangerously incomplete. Eli Health gives users the same continuous feedback loop that smartwatches brought to sleep and heart rate. * A six-second saliva test. Results in 20 minutes. Users collect saliva, wait 20 minutes, then photograph the test to receive results directly in the app. Repeat over time and you build a hormonal picture that no annual blood draw could ever provide. * Cortisol first, for good reason. Eli launched with cortisol because it sits at the top of the hormonal cascade. When cortisol is off, everything else follows. Testosterone and progesterone, including their interactions, are coming next. Join us in listening to this episode for a genuinely eye-opening conversation about hormonal health, the future of at-home diagnostics, and what it means to build a category that didn't exist before you created it. Whether you're a health-conscious consumer, a founder, or someone who just wants to understand what their body is actually telling them, this one is for you. Visit: https://eli.health/ Try their Instant Cortisol Test: https://eli.health/products/cortisol?view=sl-44128C61 If you enjoyed this episode, please leave The Story of a Brand Show a rating and review. Plus, don't forget to follow us on Apple and Spotify. Your support helps us bring you more content like this! * Today's Sponsors: Saral - The Influencer OS: https://www.getsaral.com/demo SARAL is the all-in-one influencer platform that finds brand-aligned creators, automates outreach, and manages everything in one place. Request a live demo today. Let the SARAL team know you're a The Story of a Brand Show podcast listener to get an extended free trial! Visit the link above.

May 21, 2026Episode 138453 min

Snakkidz - The Snack Bar Your Kids Will Actually Eat

What if the snack in your kid's lunchbox was doing more harm than good? Ramon Vela sits down with Steve Weiss, Co-Founder of Snakkidz, for a warm and eye-opening conversation about the state of kids' nutrition, the problem with processed snacks, and the family business born from one dad's refusal to settle for the status quo. Snakkidz makes chewy, gluten-free, better-for-you snack bars for kids — no dyes, no seed oils, low sugar, and short ingredient lists — and Steve's passion for educating parents is as compelling as the product itself. * It started with a kindergarten worksheet. When Steve's son came home with a word find sponsored by junk food brands, something clicked. That moment, combined with his manufacturing cousins' vision, sparked a family business built on the belief that kids deserve better — and parents deserve the truth. * The label lesson every parent needs. Steve breaks down exactly what to look for in a kids' snack: no artificial dyes, low sugar, no seed oils, and as few ingredients as possible. Simple rules that most popular snack brands quietly fail. * Kids have to love it — or it doesn't matter. Snakkidz went back to the drawing board on early flavors based on real consumer feedback. The result is a line of chewy, non-crumbling bars in flavors like Chunky Monkey, Strawberry, and Chocolate Chip that kids actually ask for again. * Lead by example, not by lecture. Steve and Ramon share a genuine conversation about how healthy habits in kids start with what parents model at home — from cooking together to reading labels to showing, not telling. * A family business built on trust. With a manufacturing background on one side of the family and marketing expertise on the other, Snakkidz was built on complementary skills and mutual respect — and that foundation shows in every decision they make. Join us in listening to this episode for a candid, practical, and genuinely heartfelt conversation about kids' health, nutrition education, and what it really takes to build a better-for-you brand from scratch. Whether you're a parent looking for a snack you can feel good about or a founder building in the food space — this one is worth your time. To learn more about Snakkidz, visit: https://snakkidz.com/ If you enjoyed this episode, please leave The Story of a Brand Show a rating and review. Plus, don't forget to follow us on Apple and Spotify. Your support helps us bring you more content like this! * Today's Sponsors: Saral - The Influencer OS: https://www.getsaral.com/demo SARAL is the all-in-one influencer platform that finds brand-aligned creators, automates outreach, and manages everything in one place. Request a live demo today. Let the SARAL team know you're a The Story of a Brand Show podcast listener to get an extended free trial! Visit the link above.

May 20, 2026Episode 138354 min

LensDirect - The Founder Who Refused to Quit

He sold the family business, watched someone else run it into the ground, and then bought it back. Rose Hamilton, CEO of Compass Rose Ventures and co-host of The Story of a Brand Show, sits down with Ryan Alovis, CEO of LensDirect.com, for one of the most honest and layered founder conversations the show has ever hosted. LensDirect has been in Ryan's family for a hundred years; from a great-grandfather selling frames off a pushcart on the Lower East Side to one of the most fiercely independent online vision care companies in America. This is not a comeback story. It's a discipline story. * The buyback nobody saw coming. After LensDirect was sold by his family in 2004, Ryan spent years building subscription businesses before he spotted an opportunity to acquire it back. What he bought wasn't a thriving business — it was bruised, small, and undervalued. He saw the soul everyone else had overlooked. * Independence as a competitive strategy. In a category racing toward consolidation and capital, Ryan made a deliberate choice to stay independent, stay lean, and build brick by brick — even when overcapitalized competitors made it look like they were winning. * The $10 million bet that almost didn't pay off. Ryan made a massive infrastructure investment right before COVID hit. He breaks down why that decision — which could have sunk everything — ultimately became one of the defining moves in LensDirect's modern chapter. * Growth without identity is just expansion. Ryan and Rose dig into what it really means to modernize a legacy brand without erasing its soul — and why protecting the core identity matters more than chasing every shiny opportunity the market throws at you. * Working with family is a leadership story. From his father to his brother, LensDirect has always had family threads running through it. Ryan shares what he's learned about patience, boundaries, and why there can only be one person calling the real shots. Join us in listening to this episode for a masterclass in founder discipline, brand identity, and what it really means to earn the right to exist in a competitive category — brick by brick. Whether you're building, acquiring, or figuring out your brand's next chapter, this conversation will give you a lot to think about. For more on LensDirect visit: https://www.lensdirect.com/ If you enjoyed this episode, please leave The Story of a Brand Show a rating and review. Plus, don't forget to follow us on Apple and Spotify. Your support helps us bring you more content like this!

May 13, 2026Episode 138254 min

Boarderie - How Boarderie Cracked the Code on Premium D2C Food

Most edible gifting businesses don't work at scale, the logistics are brutal, the margins get squeezed, and the moment quality slips, the whole experience breaks. Rachel Solomon Fascitelli built Boarderie anyway, and it worked. Rose Hamilton, CEO of Compass Rose Ventures and co-host of The Story of a Brand Show, sits down with Rachel to unpack how a finance background, a COVID pivot, and an obsession with operational precision turned a 2,000 square foot commissary kitchen into one of the most impressive D2C food businesses in America. * A category nobody else wanted — and exactly why she chose it. Rachel saw what others missed: a $100+ year-old edible gifting category that had never been innovated on, wide open for a founder willing to do the hard operational work to get there. * Profitable from day one, on purpose. With a finance mind running the growth engine, Boarderie was never going to be a "grow now, profit later" story. Rachel treated the ad account like a trading account — efficient CAC, disciplined spend, and a relentless focus on the bottom line from the very beginning. * Premium execution is an operations story, not a branding story. Shipping 35,000 handmade boards a day during peak season, with FedEx turning planes around in Memphis to keep up — the wow moment customers experience starts hours before the box ever opens. * Bootstrap founders learn what funded founders often don't. When there's no safety net, you have no choice but to figure it out. Rachel's team did every job themselves — paid media, content, logistics, production — before hiring anyone to do it for them. * Don't build for the coastal bubble. Build for the country. Rachel's sharpest advice for founders: stop chasing what's trendy in New York and LA, and start asking what the rest of America actually needs. That's where the real white space lives. Join us in listening to this episode for one of the most practically useful founder conversations we've had in a while. Rachel doesn't just inspire — she gives you a framework. From bootstrapping to Shark Tank to scaling dessert as a second category, this is a masterclass in what it really takes to build a profitable, operationally excellent consumer brand. For more on Boarderie visit: https://boarderie.com/ If you enjoyed this episode, please leave The Story of a Brand Show a rating and review. Plus, don't forget to follow us on Apple and Spotify. Your support helps us bring you more content like this!

May 12, 2026Episode 138158 min

The Mind Company - Train Your Brain Like You Train Your Body

Ramon Vela sits down with Dan Kessler, COO of The Mind Company, for a conversation that starts with a sobering question: what's actually happening to the human brain right now and what can we do about it? The Mind Company is the only company in the world to win App of the Year twice, from both Apple and Google, and with three distinct apps — Elevate, Balance, and Spark — it's quietly building one of the most compelling mental fitness platforms in the world. * The data behind the mental fitness crisis. Average attention spans have dropped from two and a half minutes to just 47 seconds in the last two decades. IQs are declining. Critical thinking is being outsourced to AI. Dan breaks down the numbers and why the stakes have never been higher. * Three apps, one mission. Elevate sharpens cognitive skills through brain training games. Balance delivers highly personalized meditation, mindfulness, and sleep support. And Spark, the newest app, is a daily puzzle experience for curious people who want to learn something new every single day. * Human creativity in a world of AI shortcuts. In an app store flooded with AI-generated products, The Mind Company builds everything with human editors, writers, and designers. Dan makes the case that judgment, taste, and creativity can't be automated and The Mind Company is proof. * The right framework beats founder mode. Dan shares his management philosophy: give people responsibility before they've earned it, build clear decision-making frameworks, and trust your team to grow. It's how he's built every company he's been a part of. * Mental fitness is the superpower nobody is talking about. Whether you're a founder, a parent, or just trying to stay sharp in a distracted world, Dan's message is clear: take care of your brain the way you take care of your body — and start now. Join us in listening to this episode for a fascinating and genuinely thought-provoking conversation about the state of the human mind, what mental fitness actually means, and why the apps The Mind Company has built might be the most important ones on your phone. To explore all three apps — Elevate, Balance, and Spark — available now on iOS and Android, visit The Mind Company: https://themindcompany.com/ If you enjoyed this episode, please leave The Story of a Brand Show a rating and review. Plus, don't forget to follow us on Apple and Spotify. Your support helps us bring you more content like this! * Today's Sponsors: Saral - The Influencer OS: https://www.getsaral.com/demo SARAL is the all-in-one influencer platform that finds brand-aligned creators, automates outreach, and manages everything in one place. Request a live demo today. Let the SARAL team know you're a The Story of a Brand Show podcast listener to get an extended free trial! Visit the link above.

April 30, 2026Episode 138046 min

PawCo & Genius Dog - Your Dog is Like Family. Feed them Like it.

Ramon Vela sits down with Mahsa Vazin, PhD, Founder & CEO of PawCo, for a conversation that's as much about love and purpose as it is about pet nutrition. Mahsa didn't set out to disrupt the pet food industry — she set out to take better care of her dog, Paco. What follows is a story of science, conviction, and a growing movement of pet parents who believe their dogs deserve a whole lot more than a bowl of kibble. * A founder story that starts with a dog named Paco. After her PhD in nanoscience and time as an early scientist at Impossible Foods, Mahsa couldn't find a single pet food she felt good about. PawCo was born from that search. * The next generation of pet food. Fresh, plant-based recipes formulated with probiotics, postbiotics, and targeted health toppers for gut health, joints, skin, coat, and heart, treating dogs the way health-conscious pet parents treat themselves. * Genius Dog: beyond food, into the bond. Launching in May with a NASDAQ Tower announcement, Genius Dog is a monthly subscription box built around the idea that dogs thrive when they experience new things. Popcorn. Champagne. Games. Things your dog can't find anywhere else. * Don't wait until you're ready. Mahsa's most hard-won lesson: launch before it's perfect, build a team that believes in the mission, and let the customer feedback shape what comes next. * Impact as the north star. From shelter donations to customers whose allergic dogs finally found food that works, Mahsa measures success one dog at a time. Join us in listening to this episode for a warm, genuine conversation about building a brand from the heart and why pet wellness is just getting started. For more on PawCo, visit: https://www.mypawco.com/ For more on Genius Dog, visit: https://geniusdog.com/ If you enjoyed this episode, please leave The Story of a Brand Show a rating and review. Plus, don't forget to follow us on Apple and Spotify. Your support helps us bring you more content like this! * Today's Sponsors: Saral - The Influencer OS: https://www.getsaral.com/demo SARAL is the all-in-one influencer platform that finds brand-aligned creators, automates outreach, and manages everything in one place. Request a live demo today. Let the SARAL team know you're a The Story of a Brand Show podcast listener to get an extended free trial! Visit the link above.

April 29, 2026Episode 137951 min

Cloud Water Filters - Clean Water Isn't a Given Anymore

Rose Hamilton, CEO of Compass Rose Ventures and co-host of The Story of a Brand Show, sits down with Ben Zvaifler, Founder & CEO of Cloud Water Filters, for a conversation that cuts right to the heart of one of the most overlooked categories in consumer wellness. Cloud isn't just a better water filter, it's a second-act founder's bet that the water sitting quietly under your kitchen sink is the next major frontier in the modern health-conscious home. * A second-act founder who chose harder, on purpose. After selling Pupbox to Petco, Ben applied everything he learned about recurring revenue and brand trust to tackle a far bigger, more complex problem: a water filtration category that hadn't meaningfully innovated in decades. * "Safe to drink" and "healthy to drink" are not the same thing. From PFAS forever chemicals to lead pipes contaminating water between the treatment plant and your home, Ben breaks down why reverse osmosis is the only technology that truly creates a clean slate. * The black box problem no one was solving. Legacy systems gave consumers zero visibility. Cloud's connected app delivers real-time water quality data, intelligent filter-change alerts, and remote diagnostics — turning a forgotten appliance into a trusted relationship. * Data as a moat. The behavioral and water quality data Cloud captures powers a customer service experience legacy players simply can't replicate — and drives the kind of lifetime retention that makes the unit economics work. * Demand was never the problem — hardware is hard. Chip shortages, tariffs, and capital-intensive inventory have been the real challenge. Ben's candor here is a masterclass in what experienced founders understand that first-timers often don't. Join us in listening to this episode for a genuinely eye-opening conversation about water, wellness, and what it really means to build a modern consumer brand in a category that's been quietly ignored for far too long. Whether you're a founder, an operator, or someone who just wants to know what's actually in the water your family drinks every day, this one is worth your time. For more on Cloud Water Filters visit: https://www.cloudwaterfilters.com/ If you enjoyed this episode, please leave The Story of a Brand Show a rating and review. Plus, don't forget to follow us on Apple and Spotify. Your support helps us bring you more content like this!