Episodes

Fitness icon, actor and entrepreneur Jake Steinfeld opened up about his background as an innovator, how he identifies synergies and alignment with consumer brands and the keys to cultivating a winning personality. He also shared the most important lessons he’s learned about business and how he developed his meal-replacement drink brand Don’t Quit from concept into a market-ready line.

Once Upon a Farm co-founders Jennifer Garner and John Foraker spoke about the evolution of the company’s strategy for winning over retail buyers, merchandising and communicating brand attributes over recent years and why they believe that “everything starts with the consumer.” They also discussed the company’s relationship with Save The Children and its response to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Laura Catena, managing director of lauded Argentine winery Bodega Catena Zapata and a San Francisco-based emergency room physician, explained how her professions intersect in ways that make her better in both roles, why she feels a heavy responsibility of carrying the whole country of Argentina on her shoulders and discussed her passion for achieving sustainability through innovation.

Sarah Frey, founder & CEO of Frey Farms, spoke about how she engineered her company’s remarkable turnaround despite having no formal business training, how she identified and utilized advantages her company had over larger competitors and how she navigated Walmart’s corporate culture. She also discussed how consumers’ relationship with food has evolved during the Covid era and what she’s learned about building a beverage brand.

Dean Eberhardt, co-founder & CEO of Hoplark, spoke about how getting fired from his own prior startup led him to a “lightbulb” moment and inspired the creation of the fast-growing hopped tea brand, his belief that he’s “a marketing textbook’s worst nightmare,” how the company has succeeded during the pandemic, and why he turned down a venture capital investment this past summer.