The starting point

I came on as cofounder when the business was still an idea. The founder had a logo concept and a vision, nothing built yet. The first job was to make it fundable, so I developed the pitch deck and brand design that raised a six-figure seed round, then turned that capital into a live business in under six months.

What I owned

The founder opened a few early doors, including the first key salesperson and the first manufacturer. I ran everything else and kept it connected: brand and creative from the founder’s logo concept to a full brand and packaging system, product design and labeling with recipes dialed in directly with manufacturers, a supply chain that added backup manufacturers for redundancy as volume grew, the sales team driving the brand into stores, the e-commerce site front end and back end, and social and brand marketing.

Channel strategy

Wholesale was the growth engine. Roughly 80% of revenue came from wholesale accounts selling into retail stores, and I ran those operations end to end. Direct e-commerce added the rest, which I owned front and back. The mix pushed reach through retail while holding a higher-margin direct channel of its own.

How it ended

I sold my shares to the original investing partner, who assumed full control of the business.