This is an auto-generated transcript, lightly edited for readability. Timestamps reference the audio version. If you spot an error,
let us know.
00:00:03:20 - 00:00:04:22 Unknown What happens
00:00:04:22 - 00:00:07:13 Unknown when your best friend becomes your co-founder?
00:00:07:15 - 00:00:10:18 Unknown Would you trade a stable career to sell yogurt?
00:00:10:18 - 00:00:17:14 Unknown How do two friends go from corporate jobs to ten k followers and a cult following for their yogurt company?
00:00:17:14 - 00:00:25:09 Unknown This isn't just a startup story. It's a bet on friendship, instinct, and a really good idea. Let's get.
00:00:25:09 - 00:00:30:14 Unknown 5 to 10 years ago, there wasn't really a market for a new dairy yogurt to come onto the scene.
00:00:30:14 - 00:00:36:04 Unknown We were really thinking about what was next for both of us. We both had been in our jobs for 4 years at that point.
00:00:36:04 - 00:00:37:22 Unknown You know, we'd been working at the same places.
00:00:37:22 - 00:00:45:04 Unknown We learned a ton. And it was really it felt like it was time to actually implement those learnings in a way that we felt would be impactful in the world.
00:00:45:04 - 00:00:49:08 Unknown When I looked at conventional yogurt on the shelf, I learned that most of it isn't actually probiotic.
00:00:49:08 - 00:00:53:07 Unknown Many yogurts will do what's called pasteurize after they ferment,
00:00:53:07 - 00:00:56:04 Unknown what that does is it kills off all the bacteria.
00:00:56:04 - 00:01:06:01 Unknown Like Kiki's, you know, in bed at 11 p.m., like editing. Yes. And that's like, for what I'm like up at 6 a.m.. I'm like, dealing with yogurt stuff,
00:01:06:01 - 00:01:09:18 Unknown I think the consumer is tired of celebrity brands.
00:01:09:18 - 00:01:14:05 Unknown You.
00:01:14:07 - 00:01:32:14 Unknown Welcome back to Founders in Motion. I have the best friend duo behind Beny, Kiki and Elan joining us. Kiki blew up on social media with their series Quitting My Job in Private Equity to start a yogurt company with my best friend. And what I love about their story is it's a twist on the classic start of story.
00:01:32:14 - 00:01:53:17 Unknown Instead of two best friends in a garage building the next social media, you have two best friends in the kitchen changing the way we see a very conventional product like yogurt. So welcome to the show, guys. Thank you. Thanks for having us. What a sweet introduction. I've never been compared in that way to the garage Silicon Valley boys, but I guess we have similar origins.
00:01:53:17 - 00:02:23:13 Unknown Starts at Stanford. And so how did it come to life? Yeah. So a couple years ago, I was having a whole host of gut health issues. And this manifested in several ways. It would be things like bloating after eating or inflammation or brain fog the next day. I think the moment where I specifically knew I had to take it really seriously was when I got a hormone panel done and learned that all of my hormones were at an all time low.
00:02:23:14 - 00:02:33:15 Unknown And when I started to learn how to heal my gut and improve some of the symptoms I was having, I learned that one of the best ways to do so is by taking probiotics.
00:02:33:15 - 00:02:38:21 Unknown Ideally, you get probiotics from foods that you eat, as opposed to taking a pill or a supplement.
00:02:38:21 - 00:02:41:14 Unknown And the reason for that is because it's a lot more
00:02:41:14 - 00:02:42:22 Unknown what's called bioavailable.
00:02:42:22 - 00:02:46:17 Unknown So your body can actually digest it a lot better than it can a pill.
00:02:46:17 - 00:03:01:10 Unknown So I was an athlete at Stanford. I played Division one rowing, and after practice every single morning we'd all eat Greek yogurt, which was great. And I was like, okay, I'm already eating Greek yogurt. All I have to do is eat more of this stuff and then I'll get all my probiotics.
00:03:01:12 - 00:03:02:16 Unknown But as it turns out,
00:03:02:16 - 00:03:08:04 Unknown When I looked at conventional yogurt on the shelf, I learned that most of it isn't actually probiotic. And there's a couple reasons for that.
00:03:08:04 - 00:03:22:22 Unknown One is because Many yogurts will do what's called pasteurize after they ferment, and what that does is it kills off all the bacteria. So now you have this yogurt that can last a really, really long time, but it has no active cultures in it.
00:03:23:00 - 00:03:47:22 Unknown Number two is yogurt made with bacteria strains that are really, really good for making yogurt, but not necessarily really good for your gut. So there's tens of thousands of different strains. All play a really different roles. And the yogurt strains are awesome at making yogurt, but not necessarily designed to be good for your gut. And so what I started doing for myself was, was taking these bacteria that are really designed to have benefits for your microbiome and fermenting them into yogurt.
00:03:47:22 - 00:04:09:18 Unknown So now all of a sudden, I could have this thing that I was already eating every single day be really, really good for my gut. And that's kind of like the origin of bene. I think the origin story is really that it's coming from like a passion and from a personal health journey, which really means, yeah, you know, everyone gives us the advice of, like, whenever you're starting a business, it's really, really hard.
00:04:09:20 - 00:04:32:20 Unknown And so make sure it's coming from a place where you're really fueled by like, a passion and a broader purpose. And for us, I think that really rings true of aside from that, like, who wouldn't want to build a company with their best friend in a way? Obviously. Obviously, I think that's been a really, really fun and like one of the best parts of this, in addition to the actual product, is what we're building.
00:04:32:22 - 00:04:37:14 Unknown Earlier this year when we were I guess now last year it's 2025 now. So
00:04:37:14 - 00:04:46:10 Unknown earlier last year before I know, We were really thinking about what was next for both of us. We both had been in our jobs for 4 years at that point.
00:04:46:10 - 00:04:49:05 Unknown We graduated, we were Covid graduates, so
00:04:49:05 - 00:04:53:08 Unknown we graduated in 2020 from Stanford. And,
00:04:53:08 - 00:04:55:02 Unknown You know, we'd been working at the same places.
00:04:55:02 - 00:05:02:08 Unknown We learned a ton. And it was really it felt like it was time to actually implement those learnings in a way that we felt would be impactful in the world.
00:05:02:08 - 00:05:21:01 Unknown And so when we started to think about what those experiences were, what their impact was that we wanted to create, it became super clear. Let's try and scale this thing that Elon has already, you know, built and made and healed herself with how can we bring that to a much broader population?
00:05:21:01 - 00:05:37:02 Unknown And so that was very clear to us from the beginning. And then, you know, it felt very obvious that we should work together on this because I think, yes, it's super fun to work with a best friend. Maybe not all best friends, as they say, like it's not always the best idea to go into business with friends.
00:05:37:02 - 00:05:59:20 Unknown But I think this was a very clear partnership where we felt like we know how each other thinks extremely well, we respect each other a ton, and, you know, there's synergies in areas where we are better than the other and vice versa. The idea that if we consume microbiome through food, that's always the best method. Obviously two thirds of Americans have gut health issues.
00:06:00:01 - 00:06:30:21 Unknown Everyone consumes yogurt on a daily basis. Why hasn't a product like this been created? Why has it been favored, to be pasteurized? Yeah, that's a that's a really, really good question. So there's a couple of things here. One is shelf life. So as a, as a food brand, you know, the moment you produce to the moment it is in a refrigerator in someone's house is actually a really long time, generally speaking, especially if you're producing in New York.
00:06:30:21 - 00:06:57:07 Unknown But selling in California, it takes a long time for that product to travel. So as a brand, you want to basically try as much as possible to make that shelf life as long as it can possibly be. And one way of doing that is by killing off any potential bacteria that could cause that to go bad. And so there's just an incentive there from a brand standpoint to, you know, extend that duration of that product for as long as possible.
00:06:57:08 - 00:07:22:02 Unknown The second thing is that the yogurt bacteria strains are really good at making yogurt. Other strains that might be really beneficial for your gut don't necessarily make a really, really yummy yogurt. At the end of the day, when you're selling a food product, you have to sell something that tastes good. So part of the challenge with bene is both coming up with the recipe that actually has legitimate health benefits and tastes really good.
00:07:22:04 - 00:07:46:00 Unknown The other thing that I'm going to just jump on to what Allen that is like, why hasn't the yogurt industry focused on this? I would say that Chobani, if you look at America, there's like a whole case study of Chobani and how they came in and they really made Greek yogurt mainstream, and they took, you know, something that was either the sort of sugary, random thing that yogurt and it was not a daily product, or it was in like a, you know, ethnic grocery store.
00:07:46:00 - 00:08:09:23 Unknown So, like, not in your Walmart or your target or your, you know, big chain stores. And they were really able to, you know, make Greek yogurt mainstream. And since then there's been a huge focus on protein. And so yogurt has a huge, you know, everything on their label is protein, protein, protein. And whenever I speak to customers about yogurt, the first question they ask is how much protein is in your yogurt?
00:08:10:01 - 00:08:29:05 Unknown And I think that just shows how much the consumer and how much, honestly, the yogurt industry has trained the consumer to care about protein and not about probiotics and not about the bacteria that's actually in that yogurt. And so Greek yogurt inherently has a lot of protein because of the way it's made and because it's made with dairy that already has a lot of protein.
00:08:29:07 - 00:08:51:18 Unknown They've just chosen to isolate that macronutrient, that one factor protein and really market it marketed a ton. And so that's now what we've been trained as consumers to care a lot about rather than caring about the bacteria. So that sort of forced the industry wave. And our bet is that people still care about protein, but now they're caring a lot more about gut health.
00:08:51:18 - 00:09:15:09 Unknown And so the next iteration of what yogurt will look like for this industry will include what the conversation will have to include protein and bacteria like bacteria. If you think about the Greek yogurt movement, it's only been in the last, what, ten years? It's become really mainstream, especially more in Western countries. And now I would love to talk a little bit more about kind of your journey.
00:09:15:09 - 00:09:39:11 Unknown So you guys have been super transparent about your startup journey on social media and people love it. What's been the most rewarding interaction from sharing your story? The most rewarding social media moment for us has been, maybe it was two months ago, so I had sort of December. Yeah, it was in December. And I had just it was one month into me starting on social media, and I actually had already gone home.
00:09:39:11 - 00:10:00:16 Unknown I'm going to tell the story, but, I actually wasn't even there either. I had already gone home to California, and it was the days leading up to Christmas, and Alon was still in the city, and he was actually heading out to Pennsylvania to go to a family, gathering for Christmas over in Pennsylvania and so on the way, she decided to stop at one of the biggest, you know, a huge co manufacturer.
00:10:00:16 - 00:10:19:03 Unknown So a big facility that many factories, a lot of different yogurt brands. And in some ways we are too early for that. Right. Like this was in December. We didn't even we weren't even full time on this, but we really just wanted to start educating ourselves around, you know, what do co manufacturers look like? What do they care about all of those things.
00:10:19:05 - 00:10:38:19 Unknown Now they're doing yogurt orders that are on the production. You know, that are is on the scale of tens of thousands of units of yogurt a week, which is just not what we can accommodate right now given our current demand and size. And so Alon had gone through the whole factory tour with them. She really got along with them.
00:10:38:19 - 00:11:04:23 Unknown She was on her usual alon, spotlight. And so she was basically selling hard on why they should care about Beny. And by the end they were so excited about work, they really wanted to make it work. They wanted to be partners with us. All of those things. She pulls out of the parking lot and drives away, and she gets a call back from a random number, and it's actually somebody who just works at the factory that she just was visiting and says, can you turn around right now?
00:11:04:23 - 00:11:25:03 Unknown You know, we have the owner, you know, back here at the factory who wants to meet you. She turns around you. No, she turns around and she goes back in. And in addition to the owner being there, there are two other young women who are like our age who work for one of the competitors. One of our competitors, who is actually manufacturing at that come in.
00:11:25:07 - 00:11:46:23 Unknown They're not like competitors, but they're just another younger person in the industry. And they immediately recognized Alon from my social media and they said, oh my gosh. They said to the owners, you need we need to work with them. We need to support them. We've been following this yogurt brand through my social media for the past month, and we're doing everything we can to root them on.
00:11:46:23 - 00:12:07:09 Unknown They've done such a good job storytelling, whatever. They're just gushing about how bought in they are to our brand. And granted, they run the social media accounts of like, these other yogurt companies and you even still, they felt so, so excited for us to succeed and sort of pushing everybody in their industry to support us, to help us succeed, too.
00:12:07:09 - 00:12:28:15 Unknown So I think that was just like a testament to not only is it potential customers, but it's also people in the industry who are seeing us and want to help us. Given you know how new we are and how much that they want other people to succeed, I love that. That's such a great story. And, are you guys thinking of potentially working with them in the future?
00:12:28:17 - 00:12:37:04 Unknown Yeah, we'd love to be able to partner them in the future. They've been just such an incredible resource for us, and I think it's also a really good reminder that, like, yes,
00:12:37:04 - 00:12:48:15 Unknown there's competition in this space, but at the end of the day, like Kiki and my goal is to create more yogurt, people like, we want to have more people who are buying and eating yogurt on a regular basis.
00:12:48:15 - 00:13:12:06 Unknown And right now, very few people can get bene, especially if you're not in New York City. And so by us kind of sharing the benefits of yogurt and sort of increasing the pie, we're also driving business to other yogurt brands. And so there's just been this like very strong camaraderie between other yogurt companies wanting to help us and wanting to see us succeed because a rising tide lifts all boats.
00:13:12:06 - 00:13:34:15 Unknown Yeah, I love that. I wish I was still in New York just to try, but, I want to be a pop ups. And then I would love to talk about the flip side of things. So obviously sharing your story on social media, what has been the downside of being so public? Yeah. I think that there's like I would say there's two sides of it.
00:13:34:15 - 00:13:53:21 Unknown One is the perception that it gives. And so I think people think we're a lot further along than we are in some ways. Like people are asking me, where can I buy it? Where is it? Right. Like, are you guys at Whole Foods? Are you, you know, in all these grocery stores and ultimately know most brands for the first, at least 12 months are not in a grocery store.
00:13:53:21 - 00:14:14:12 Unknown They're building up their supply chain, they're figuring out their demand. And you don't see that as a consumer, like you actually only know the second. But they hit the grocery store shelves. And so in a way, it's great because we're showing that these things take time and that we're putting in the time and we're making the right decisions, and we're going about this growth in a very strategic and methodical way.
00:14:14:12 - 00:14:37:08 Unknown But on the other side, I think there's a real sort of urgency and almost like unrealistic expectations that people have of us because we are so upfront about where we are and because we're so public and have gained some, some attention from it. And then I would say the other side is like my personal side. There's like a very real toll.
00:14:37:13 - 00:14:59:09 Unknown And I think I've been able to manage it and I've had to like shift my mindset in order to do that. But there's a very real toll to putting yourself out there every single day and being able to do that and share the and the losses and everything that come with it. And I think, you know, Instagram used to be my personal Instagram, and now it's like totally a stake strategy.
00:14:59:09 - 00:15:18:10 Unknown It's a it's a channel, right. Like it's it's a channel to reach more customers. And until I made that switch in my head like it still fall personal. Right. Like every view that I didn't get every like that. I didn't get every follow. I didn't get that felt personal. Now it's just okay. Something's not working. This is this is a demand gen thing.
00:15:18:10 - 00:15:40:01 Unknown And how do I make sure that this marketing is better and that I can do it better. And so being able to sort of separate those things is, is also important. This is the last thread I will pull on this. But you've grown your Instagram following to ten K in no time and counting. Looking back on that ride, what type of content really made people want to follow?
00:15:40:02 - 00:16:08:15 Unknown Totally. I quit my job in private equity to start. That's right. So for, I think it's the content. I think what resonates the most with people and I think the intentional I don't know if you noticed, but I'm intentionally building on my personal Instagram and not on our Instagram. And I think the real conversion there, from views to followers, is all about a personal story and feeling like they're rooting for somebody and not something.
00:16:08:17 - 00:16:30:12 Unknown And if I was building from any yogurt, we are subliminal. We are always selling something to you. And in order to actually convert people and to gain an audience that's authentic and engaged. And by the way, everything I do put out is extremely authentic. Like, in no way am I, you know, thinking about how to get more followers in this exact way or say, this thing like that would be too hard.
00:16:30:12 - 00:16:56:10 Unknown I need to just put out how I'm feeling and what I'm thinking and what I'm doing every single day. And that in itself, I think, has been the key to actually converting people, is showing them that I'm on this journey and that I'm doing something. I feel so risky, and it's actually crazy. Like, that sentence is absurd that I quit my job in private equity to start a yoga company best friend, but that because of that, they want to be in that with me and they want to witness that with me.
00:16:56:10 - 00:17:15:22 Unknown And so that's definitely been the most successful. And I think why I'm still continuing to build on my personal is because it allows me to connect with people more authentically, rather than it feeling constantly like, you know, a potential sale. I would definitely say that's really the series that got me hooked on your stories as well, so I can definitely resonate as an audience.
00:17:15:22 - 00:17:49:09 Unknown We mentioned this a little bit, but starting a business with your college best friend sounds like an absolute dream. But what's been the, best part of working as a duo? But also, what are some ground rules that you have to keep things running smoothly? Yeah, that's a great question. When we first became full time on Beny, so we were working on Valley nights and weekends, for a couple months before actually going full time was like the mornings before our full time jobs, in the evenings after our full time jobs were, like, dedicated to Beny.
00:17:49:11 - 00:18:08:07 Unknown And the day we went full time, it was back in January. We sat down and we discussed like, what are the number one things we need to talk about and like set ground rules for? And the first thing we discussed was, well, there are two things. One is how is our friendship going to be affected by us building a company together?
00:18:08:07 - 00:18:26:05 Unknown And like, what are the expectations that we have with our friendship and the ground rules there? And then two is, how are we going to resolve conflict? Because I think at the end of the day, like, you know, I don't know what the stat is, but like over 50% of start ups fail because of like Co co-founder, break ups and co-founder issues the idea.
00:18:26:07 - 00:18:47:01 Unknown And so conflict resolution is a huge part of it. Luckily for us like we were super super aligned on it. And I think as bestfriends that's like our superpower. So I see you out and about consists constantly doing partnerships, hosting events, making moves across New York every weekend. How do you think about setting personal boundaries and detaching from work?
00:18:47:07 - 00:19:11:00 Unknown If you do? Like, there's no boundaries at all. My nights are like, you know, I'm getting invited to this dinner event on a Monday night. I have a walk after this with the guy who runs a supper club series, and it's like 6 p.m. on a Monday night, right? And then like, tomorrow, we are for jam pack. We might be going up to a farm on Thursday and like, having to just blow off everything and be there.
00:19:11:02 - 00:19:15:17 Unknown But it hasn't been a problem in terms of like how I want to live my life.
00:19:15:17 - 00:19:25:14 Unknown Like Kiki's, you know, in bed at 11 p.m., like editing. Yes. And that's like, for what I'm like up at 6 a.m.. I'm like, dealing with yogurt stuff,
00:19:25:14 - 00:19:31:17 Unknown and that's also for work. But it's just a part of our everyday life and we don't really see it as like, I have to show up to work today.
00:19:31:19 - 00:20:09:13 Unknown And one other thing that I'll also say is that an interesting part of any industry, but I think particularly as young founders who are new to a space, making friends and being like in the network of other founders who are starting food, CPG brands, who are in the restaurant industry, who are doing dairy, who are, you know, in the marketing or PR like all of that is actually very crucial for our success, but also has been a really fun and new explorative part of starting this company is being able to meet new connections and like, build new community in those spaces where we wouldn't have had access to before because we weren't in this industry.
00:20:09:13 - 00:20:31:19 Unknown So it's like totally blurred lines, but also and that's really fun and like nothing else than that right now, at least at this point. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess it also helps that you're doing it with your best friend, right? So you're kind of taking a you're kind of hanging out while you're working. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean that that's a huge, huge part of why this is so fun.
00:20:31:20 - 00:20:56:12 Unknown Yeah. Totally. Yeah. And then it wouldn't be the show if we didn't talk about roadblocks and challenges. So what's been the toughest challenge in building Beny so far. And how did you guys push through it. Yeah, it's a great question. I mean like in with the mindset of us building in the public, we can tell you about some of the challenges we're thinking about right now.
00:20:56:14 - 00:21:20:08 Unknown And so with consumer food brands, a lot of the latest and greatest CPG companies that you'll see will be a protein bar or potato chip or a drink. And the commonality between these things is that they're shelf stable. You actually don't have to worry about, you know, a ticking time bomb for expiration. And they're also really cheap to produce and have high margins.
00:21:20:10 - 00:21:42:09 Unknown So what you can do as a as a CBD, which is like this is one strategy. It's not the strategy that we take or, want to take, but what you could have done is, okay, we want to start a company. Let's go find a food scientist and let's go find a factory. And let's go create our design and our product and our label, and then go make a ton of yogurt.
00:21:42:11 - 00:22:07:14 Unknown And then let's go try and sell it to grocery stores or DTC or whatever that might look like. The reason why we can't do that is because we are a perishable, dairy based product that also has to be on cold chain at every single point in the supply chain. We need to be refrigerated right? Which means that we have to focus on creating distribution and marketing and demand before we go into production.
00:22:07:16 - 00:22:32:06 Unknown And it also means that at any given point in time, we want to be producing to meet our demand, not produce overproducing where we have too much product and we don't have anyone to sell it to. And so part of the is where we're at is finding the right co manufacturer or co-packer who can meet the demand that we're, that we're growing to, without jumping too far ahead.
00:22:32:08 - 00:23:09:14 Unknown Then the other side of the challenge is how do we make sure we're continuing to increase that demand and not just relying on the traditional ways of distribution to get our name out there? You will notice that most yogurt brands do not build in public. You'll notice that actually, most food CPG brands have very little like footprint on the digital footprint landscape, and that they're spending almost all their marketing dollars to get into Walmart, to get into target, to get into Whole Foods, and then to buy an end cap or a promotion or to have, you know, a demo in the store or to have an end cap for people is like, you know, one
00:23:09:14 - 00:23:30:04 Unknown of those big things at the end of the aisle that's branded with them, or that their product is at the end of the aisle, and that's because they're playing the game of marketing doesn't matter that much. You just need to get to attention, get their attention when they're in the store, the shopper. And we think that's true and we cannot rely on that given we only have, you know, we have a much shorter shelf life.
00:23:30:04 - 00:23:49:12 Unknown And so that's why it's really important for us to build in public to basically have and build a virtual line out the door at any given time. So when we do hit the grocery store shelves, people already know our brand and they already feel activated and excited to try our yogurt and to buy it. So that way we can ideally fly off shelves when we're ready.
00:23:49:14 - 00:24:08:16 Unknown I want to talk about trends shaping the food industry. So what are some of the biggest trends shaping the food industry, and specifically the yogurt aisle that the team is seeing? Yeah, I mean, we already touched on it, but protein is like it's now become like a machine. Yeah. Like I don't know if you feel it like
00:24:08:16 - 00:24:10:03 Unknown everything is protein ified.
00:24:10:03 - 00:24:20:07 Unknown Like you literally will see, you know, there's protein. Water is now there's it's just like every single thing has the protein slapped on the label and like, huge
00:24:20:07 - 00:24:31:11 Unknown branding, it's a whole. Yeah. Holy thing. So that's number one that's shaping the food industry, which I think again, that's sort of a tailwind for us because Greek yogurt inherently already has a lot of protein in the way that it's made.
00:24:31:11 - 00:24:54:01 Unknown And so that's sort of a natural, and already like trained the consumer is already trained to know that. And so we don't need to do as much education around that. I think another which, you know, Alon briefly sort of alluded to with her with saying our thesis on dairy is I think there's a real trend back towards whole animal products and just the outer aisles of a grocery store generally.
00:24:54:03 - 00:25:06:09 Unknown And so what that means is, again, like produce meat, dairy, those less processed foods. And we're seeing that specifically with animal products. You know, there was a whole probably about
00:25:06:09 - 00:25:11:14 Unknown 5 to 10 years ago, there wasn't really a market for a new dairy yogurt to come onto the scene.
00:25:11:14 - 00:25:22:00 Unknown There were so many alternatives. There was, you know, all these soy based, you know, oat milk, almond milk, all those types of things for the nondairy eaters.
00:25:22:00 - 00:25:51:14 Unknown And now, because of a broader awareness on health and the high processed ness of these alternatives, and, you know, spiking your blood glucose level, like all the soy stuff, like all of those things, there's now definitely a trend back towards dairy. And you'll see that with like social media and, you know, culture setters. And now also in the US, even with this current administration, there's definitely a push more towards those things.
00:25:51:16 - 00:26:00:20 Unknown So I'd say those are the biggest things. And then I'd say like the last thing, which maybe is less about consumer habits, but definitely potentially more about our marketing strategy is
00:26:00:20 - 00:26:05:00 Unknown I think the consumer is tired of celebrity brands.
00:26:05:00 - 00:26:13:18 Unknown I feel like 2024 was like the total apex of celebrity brands. And we saw Alex Cooper. There's Prime from Logan and Jake Paul.
00:26:13:20 - 00:26:45:05 Unknown There's you know, Mr. Beast with Mr. Feast with Feast of Bowls, like all of these new CPG products. And I, at least as a consumer, feel a little fatigued from that. So I think that we've seen almost that wave is cresting. And I think there's a lot more room for fresher, more bootstrapped community driven on the ground brands that are building from the ground up and really can include the customer in the experience and not just sort of pop out a finished product everywhere in the US.
00:26:45:07 - 00:27:17:13 Unknown And one thing that I've noticed when you mention or these celebrity brands is a lot of them end up being like energy drinks or some kind of beverage slash shelf like products like chocolate. I would love to learn a bit more about your perspective on independent brands breaking into grocery stores. It's hard. I think that there's my perspective is that, you know, it is a grocery stores.
00:27:17:14 - 00:27:38:21 Unknown The consumer only sees the tip of the iceberg. It is a lot of work to get into a grocery store, and there are so many hoops to jump. And you know, the the level of, like margin cut that you get as a brand to be in a grocery store, sort of. Some have a pay to play model.
00:27:38:23 - 00:28:01:19 Unknown All these different things make it really hard for a new independent brand to break into a grocery store. And they're really built for these legacy brands. They're really built for brands at scale to really continue to scale, to continue churning out new SKUs. So like new products within, you know, a certain category and allow those to scale because they already have the inroads and distribution.
00:28:01:20 - 00:28:30:08 Unknown But the flip side of that is if you can break in, you can really be on a pretty quick ramp to growing your brand and to, you know, doubling your revenue and going sort of all the way up that sort of logarithmic curve, exponential curve. And so there's sort of a high barrier to entry. But I think once you're there, grocery stores are really set up to allow you a wide amount of distribution and to potentially turn your brand, your small independent brand, into a legacy brand down the line.
00:28:30:10 - 00:29:00:13 Unknown Yeah. And the the two things I would add to that are one is we are probably choosing one of the hardest products to launch. We are choosing a animal based perishable product. So that's like the hardest thing you can do when it comes to to choosing a product in the grocery store. But I think that part of the reason why we're so excited about it is because yogurt has like 92% household penetration, so it's very widely used.
00:29:00:19 - 00:29:17:15 Unknown We're a product that we want people to be eating every single day. I would love to see everyone. I would love to see 92% of Americans every want to have bene in their kitchen one day. I mean, it's not that you listen.
00:29:17:17 - 00:29:46:00 Unknown So, guys, what's next for Vini? What are the team's top priorities in the next few months? I would say that priority number one for growing our brand is really seeing through our demand. So we really want to make sure that we can saturate New York City almost outside of grocery stores, so we can sort of have a hold and stimulate that experience of, you know, shopping from a grocery store, but through pop up events, through demos, through all of those things.
00:29:46:00 - 00:30:03:03 Unknown And the way we're going to get there is growing my social media. And so my goal is, how do I make sure everybody in our target demographic sees me at least ten times in the New York City area, or ideally, they follow me. That's the biggest thing. And then, you know, number two, how do they make sure they're trying our yogurt?
00:30:03:03 - 00:30:23:12 Unknown So how do we live as many yogurt in all the places that our customer lives, whether that's that, you know, yoga studios, we're doing something at a Pilates studio next month will be, you know, at a coffee shop, like every other week, we're going to be at, like the hottest bagels place next week, actually, tomorrow. And so how do we make sure that those people are trying our yogurt?
00:30:23:12 - 00:30:41:07 Unknown So by the time we're in grocery stores, they are so ready and activated to buy our yogurt. Super exciting. I can't wait to see Penny absolutely explode in 2025, and to eventually have Bene in Australia to try it. I would love that, I love that.
00:30:41:07 - 00:30:47:11 Unknown You.
00:31:38:22 - 00:31:57:10 Unknown Okay. Do you think every founder should be pulling in public? Leave your thoughts in the comments and if you want to check out more early stage founder stories, you can check out this playlist. Until next time, do hit the like and subscribe button. It really helps out the channel and helps us continue to deliver these stories to you and to more people out there.
00:31:57:12 - 00:31:59:17 Unknown Okay. Bye for now.
00:34:25:16 - 00:34:30:22 Unknown Ideally, you get probiotics from foods that you eat, as opposed to taking a pill or a supplement.
00:34:30:22 - 00:34:32:06 Unknown what's called bioavailable.
00:34:32:06 - 00:34:36:01 Unknown So your body can actually digest it a lot better than it can a pill.
00:34:39:03 - 00:34:48:13 Unknown at the end of the day, like Kiki and my goal is to create more yogurt, people like, we want to have more people who are buying and eating yogurt on a regular basis.