How Ollin's Founder is Building a Mission-Driven and Market-Smart Brand
(Listen on Apple or Spotify. Full transcript below.)
When Alyssa Fernandez stood in the baking aisle, she noticed something that would eventually become her business...
Between the conventional boxes and the premium gluten-free options sat an enormous gap—not just in price, but in possibility. What if someone created a premium cake mix that wasn't defined by what it lacked, but celebrated for what it contained?
This observation led to Ollin, a heritage grain cake mix company that launched in May 2025 after 18 months of meticulous preparation. In my recent podcast conversation with Alyssa, she revealed how she built a mission-driven brand that's also market-smart—a balance many food founders struggle to achieve.
The Power of Patient Preparation
While many founders rush to market, Alyssa spent a year and a half before her official launch. This wasn't perfectionism—it was strategic patience. As she shared in our conversation, those 18 months weren't just about perfecting recipes (though she certainly did that, working with specialty flours from Barton Springs Mill in Texas). The real work happened in understanding her market position.
"I spent a lot of time thinking about messaging, like who am I actually targeting? Who are potential customers and where do I fit in the current market?" Alyssa explained. She realized early that her competition wasn't Betty Crocker or Duncan Hines—it was the premium gluten-free brands commanding higher price points.
This insight led to a fascinating revelation about her target market that she unpacks fully in the podcast. Let's just say it involves the 99% of gluten-free purchasers who don't actually have celiac disease—a massive, underserved market.
Learning the Unglamorous Parts First
One of the most refreshing aspects of Alyssa's approach is her commitment to learning every aspect of her business before delegating. Yes, even the parts that make her cringe in retrospect.
"Some days I think about it, I'm like, wow, that was embarrassing," she admitted about her early buyer calls. But here's what struck me: she views this discomfort as essential education. By fumbling through those first sales calls herself, she's learning what resonates, what falls flat, and most importantly, what her brand truly stands for.
In the podcast, she shares specific examples of tasks she initially underestimated—from the hidden costs of packaging to the intricate dance of pitching to buyers. These stories offer invaluable lessons for any founder tempted to outsource before they understand.
The "Bullets Before Cannonballs" Strategy
Rather than going all-in on national distribution, Alyssa is taking what she calls a "bullets before cannonballs" approach—testing small before scaling big. She launched with direct-to-consumer sales through ollinyall.com and secured placement in Pop-Up Grocer in New York City.
"Right now, where I see things going is going very deep and wide in targeted regions," she explained. Her strategy focuses on cities with established baking cultures—Austin, New York, potentially the West Coast—where premium ingredients already have an audience.
What's brilliant about this approach is how she's using D2C data to inform retail expansion. As she revealed in our conversation, online sales patterns can reveal surprising geographic opportunities that might never appear obvious from traditional market research.
Mission Meets Market Reality
Perhaps the most thought-provoking part of our conversation centered on how Alyssa balances her mission—taking the baggage out of gluten by celebrating heritage grains—with market realities. She made a conscious choice not to lead with her mission, despite her deep passion for specialty grains and their flavors.
"A mission will only capture a seldom amount of people's attention," she noted, citing research that shaped her go-to-market strategy. Instead, she's meeting consumers where they are, using approachable language while building in opportunities for education.
This doesn't mean compromising her values. Rather, it's about creating what she calls "a softer opening approach" that leaves room for people who might not initially be drawn to heritage grains to discover them naturally. The full conversation reveals her specific tactics for this balance—strategies any mission-driven founder could adapt.
The Mental Game of Entrepreneurship
What sets this interview apart is Alyssa's candor about the emotional journey of founding a food business. She spoke openly about accepting failure as a possible outcome—not from a place of pessimism, but as a practice that actually freed her to make better decisions.
"It makes me not feel desperate. Makes me not feel like I have to say yes to everything," she explained. This mental shift has profound implications for how she approaches opportunities, partnerships, and growth decisions.
In the podcast, she shares personal stories and unexpected sources of inspiration that keep her grounded during the inevitable tough days of entrepreneurship. Trust me, you won't expect where she finds her motivation.
Building on Your Own Terms
What I find most inspiring about Alyssa's journey is how she's building Ollin on her own terms—mission-driven but market-smart, patient but purposeful, learning constantly while moving forward. She's proof that you don't need to choose between purpose and profit, between authenticity and market viability.
In our full conversation, Alyssa goes much deeper into each of these topics, sharing specific strategies, funny stories, and hard-won wisdom from her journey. She reveals the exact market research that shaped her positioning, the unexpected challenges of self-manufacturing, and the daily practices that keep her grounded as a founder.
Whether you're pre-launch, recently launched, or simply fascinated by how food brands come to life, this episode offers a masterclass in building thoughtfully in today's market.
If you're ready to build your food business on your own terms—balancing mission with market reality, patience with progress—Alyssa's complete story will give you both the inspiration and practical strategies you need.
Listen to our full conversation on The Good Food CFO Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts.
Building a mission-driven food brand? We'd love to hear your story and share how you're creating success on your own terms. Reach out to us at hello@thegoodfoodcfo.com.
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Full Episode Transcript
You're listening to the Good Food CFO podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Delevan, and with me as always is our producer, Chelsea Stier. Hey, Chelsea. Hey, Sarah. I am so excited about your guest today. It's a good one. Yeah, Alyssa Fernandez is actually someone I brought to the table that I thought you should meet, and I'm excited for the rest of our audience to meet her as well. She is taking the baggage out of gluten, as she says.
with her cake mix company, In. Before we get to that conversation though, I have a review to share with you. you know I love a review. Yeah. So this review comes from YouTube. It's YouTube user Felice, not Feliz. And while they were watching our most recent BABOYOT episode with Joe from CBT Soft Serve, they said,
This is so good. I had to pause so that I could listen in my car in peace. And I'm only at three minutes and 58 seconds. Well, that's awesome. They said national retail is sold as a dream, but this is the second time I've seen in the last two days to start with regional and get everywhere you can locally first.
Well, Felice, not Feliz, thank you so much for that review. We are so glad that you liked this episode. And I'm also so glad that the word is getting out and it's becoming more common. That's a big mission of ours here, right, is to not discourage anyone from going national, but to really talk about the value, not just to your business, but beyond, right, to your community of being local, being regional. And then once you've got that awesome following,
going bigger after that. So thank you for, again, listening. Thank you for what I consider like confidence building words, right? Like the message is getting out there. It's really exciting. And welcome to the community. I don't think we've met before. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, Felice. And I will say that when an episode stops you in your tracks, like this one did for Felice, leaving a review helps the next founder.
Speaker 2 (02:24.044)
Discover the insights that are shared by our BABOYOT founders or by you, Sarah, the conversations that you and I have here. So if that happens today, while you're listening to this episode, I want you to hit pause, go and tap those five stars and leave a review because that's going to help entrepreneurs who need to hear the truth about sustainable growth over flashy expansion. Find this podcast. And if you're watching on YouTube and you haven't subscribed yet,
Click the link below and turn on notifications and then let us know what you think about this episode down in the comments. Okay, Sarah, let's get back to our main episode today. This is another BABOYOT Conversation. And like I said, you're having this one with Alyssa from Ollin. Yeah, thank you so much, Chelsea, for introducing Alyssa to me and recommending her for the podcast. She's the founder of Ollin, spelled O-L-L-I-N.
a cake mix company on a mission to, as you said, take the baggage out of gluten. She was born and raised in Texas. She comes from a family of bakers, but had to change how she ate due to health issues in adulthood. Rather than giving up on gluten, she dove deep into ancient grains and heritage processing methods to create better baked goods, which led her to launch Ollin. I will say that as a supporter of
local and regional foods. was introduced to heritage grains, gosh, maybe 10 years ago. And not only do they react different for a lot of people, you know, like on consumption than commercial flowers, you know, that are sold in the big grocery stores, they also taste amazing. They really do have different
flavors and textures and it's such a unique thing. And I think we dive into that a little bit in the conversation, but if you haven't explored ancient grain flowers or other things, I highly recommend it, whether it's in a baked good or otherwise. Just a cool, cool thing to experience as a food. Yeah. And I did like that part of the conversation, you know, listening to like your experience, right, in the baking school and…
Speaker 2 (04:38.686)
your experience with those different flowers. But one of the things I thought was really cool is really just that she's taking this opportunity to introduce these ancient grains and to a wider audience. think that that's so cool. And Sarah, when you were introducing Alyssa just now, you mentioned that it was her health issues and adulthood and diving into these deep grains that led her to launching Ollin. And I want to be very clear.
that when we say launching, like that happened within the last few months that she launched this company. Yeah, I love talking to founders who have recently launched or who are working to launch on the podcast. I personally find it really fascinating and I think helpful, hopefully helpful to the founders who are listening to hear about the behind the scenes work that happens. What was the, you know,
work like in the 12 months, eight months, six months, one month leading up to launch? Where did founders spend their time? How much did they spend on brand strategy and brand identity? How much time did they spend on developing the product? What was the go-to-market strategy like? How did they go about making the decisions that they're making in order to launch? Because I think there's that saying of like, you
like put the plane together as you're flying it. And I think there will always be an element of that in entrepreneurship and, you know, running a business. But I don't think we should celebrate that only, right? I think there's a lot to celebrate, to talk about, and to recognize quite frankly in the deep work, the hard work that happens before a product is ever put on a shelf or brought to a farmer's market or posted on a website.
I love having these conversations and I loved that Alyssa was really open with how she spent her time in getting to launch. Yeah, and I think she was very open about some of the miscalculations that she made and things that she learned. I also think I really liked hearing about how she is leaning into the learning, right? And that learning curve, she kind of considers her competitive advantage, right?
Speaker 2 (07:04.278)
I think she said there was something about like, she's going to learn and grow until she's like a founder who is firm on her feet. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I think that there is a lot of value in knowing every part of your business in the early days, right? And really understanding it yourself before you hand it off to someone else. And she talks about that, how she makes that decision and when she hands things off and
I think that's also a really interesting insight. No two founders are going to be the same, but I loved her take on that. I also really loved her take on why she thinks her product can be successful on shelf. She really talked about a market gap, which I also think is a really important part of developing a product and then launching that product. That big question of, there a need for my product?
in the marketplace. Who is my customer? What is the need that I am meeting? And I don't want to give too much away, but as I said, she did identify a gap in the cake mix aisle, if you will, really two aisles that offer cake mix. And she is putting all in right in that gap. And it's really interesting, I think, to hear that thought process, the research that she did.
I'm really excited to follow up with her in a few months or a year's time to see what she's learned and how things have changed. Because if there's one thing we know for sure is that things are going to change. We can be just like forecasting, business planning. It's our best intentions. It's what we think is going to happen, but it will always look a little bit different in reality. love talking to early stage founders and then excited to check in with her down the road to see how everything's going.
I think there's nothing else to say. Why don't we jump into this conversation? Yeah, let's do it. Hey there, it's Sarah. If you're enjoying the podcast, I want to invite you to become a BABOYOT member. It stands for building a business on your own terms and your membership directly supports the continued production of this podcast and helps us reach our goal of supporting 1 million food founders. As a member, you'll get access to our live coaching events, have your brand featured right here on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (09:24.536)
Be the first to test our new tools and receive a 10 % discount on all of our tools and services when you choose an annual plan. Join fellow successful founders at the goodfoodcfo.com slash BABOYOT. That's spelled B-A-B-O-Y-O-T. Together, we're changing the way that food business is done. Now, back to the show. Alyssa, welcome to the podcast.
Hey there, Sarah. It's pleasure to be here.
I'm really excited to talk with you today. Our producer, Chelsea, became aware of your brand, I think via LinkedIn, and she was like, Sarah, I really love what Alyssa is doing. I think that you should talk with her. So thank you for being open to joining us and talking about your journey so far in CPG.
Yeah, no, I am a verbal processor. So I find like these opportunities to be able to converse with folks like you who have been in the industry much longer than I have to be very clarifying.
I love that. I'm also a verbal processor. totally... So tell us a little bit about your brand and what the vision is for your business.
Speaker 1 (10:35.65)
Definitely. So I'm the founder of Ollin which is an Aztec word that translates to movement or to come back full circle. And that's really the philosophy and the approach that I have with building this. And it's something that just came out of my own personal experience where I just had all these different things in my life kind of happened separately, but eventually diverged into what would become all in. And the mission is very simple, it is to take the baggage out of gluten. It's something that, at least with me, I've seen in the market for the past 15-ish years, more or less, that gluten-free has really just taken over. It's kind of the default healthy baking choice. And what I noticed was that there was just such a big gap into specialty grains. And I'm someone that can go knee deep into any food category, like talk to me about coffee, talk to me about different pastas and grain was grains were just the next thing. And the more I delved into it, the more I discovered that flour is flavor and that we don't need to demonize these grains. And we also can create even more flavorful baked goods without having to add anything else. It's just curating it to like create these sensations.
Yeah, I love that. I share a little bit about my history, you know, throughout the podcast episodes and things. And early on, my experience in the food industry was at a baking school, a cooking school. And one of the greatest bakers that I've ever met, her name is Clemence. She's got a bakery here in, I think the Santa Monica area now. She was the first person to introduce me to the different types of flowers and the grains that were being grown throughout Southern California, primarily.
Speaker 2 (12:34.39)
and making cookies out of them and breads and cakes. And I remember we had this class where it was all about the different grains and she made the same cookies with the different flowers. And it was mind blowing how like textures and flavors and you come to realize, you know, that AP flower is pretty boring and you can create some really, really beautiful, but simple things when you've got.
good flour and so many things in our food industry, the thing that is the easiest to ship and store and can be made, quote unquote, most stable is the thing that sort of takes over. You say that in terms of grains, in terms of carrots, you know I mean? In terms of the apples that show up on the grocery store shelves. And so I think it's beautiful and definitely part of that good food movement and good food industry for you to be saying, hey, let's bring some of these other
flowers and grains to the forefront in a way that's very approachable for people.
And that's kind of where I started leaning in towards making it a cake mix. I think right now we are like just past the peak of cookie media. I mean, I think a lot of this was like kind of forefronted by Crumbo, but like you can see patterns like throughout the decades of what was the baked good that everyone couldn't get enough of. You know, you have like the 2000s was very cupcake focus.
2010s were like these fusion Instagram like monster milkshakes cupcakes the cronut whatever you call it and right now we're at cookies so what I like to think is that cake is just kind of the the next thing that's gonna be really pop off and I see it a lot like with the baking fluencers that I follow I mean they are just geniuses with when it comes to
Speaker 1 (14:32.77)
like really crafting just these beautiful flavors and even more beautiful cakes. And I wanted to make this approachable for folks because it is a bit of a learning curve if you want to bake with heritage and ancient grains, you can't just swap 100 % spelt or einkorn for your flour and expect it to bake the same way. You're actually going to end up with like a mushy brick.
Right. So interesting. the yeah, very different ingredient really. Right. Yeah. So can we talk a little bit about where you are sourcing your grains from? And then I'm curious if how many mixes you have and then if it's like a different grain type, you know, within each product sort of how you're thinking about that.
Definitely. So right now we source everything from Barton Springs Mill. They are located in Dripping Springs, Texas, which is just like south of Austin. They are the kings of milling. All the recipes I've developed has been using their flowers and other flowers that I found online. And it really is just no comparison.
So when you're thinking about the grains that you've chosen and your product, so how many different products do you have? And then are they different grains in each one? Is it a blend? Tell us a little bit about what that looks like.
Yeah, so we started out with two skews. have our Golden Hour Yellow Cake Mix and our Any Day Chocolate Cake Mix. And they each have their own featured flower. And if you look at the packaging, I play a lot with the Western theme just because for Texas, you you may as well have a little bit of fun with it. And one day to find a way to characterize and give a personality to these grains. So the main base flower is one called Tam 105. That's in the Golden Hour and the Any Day.
Speaker 1 (16:24.014)
It's just a very nice neutral wheat. Like, okay, he's just, he's very good at giving other people the spotlight, but in our packaging, we call them Sheriff Tam 105. And then each has their own deputy. So the deputy for Golden Hour is spelt. Spelt is nutty, has like these nutty undertones. It's a slightly sweet flower. Like even if you just have it kind of
in a very plain good like a pasta without any added sugar, you still have those undertones eating it. It's just a very, it's a very cool flower. And for our any day chocolate, we use rye. And I will say for our chocolate, I was very careful not to over promise people and call it like an indulgent decadent treat. isn't. Whenever I tell people about it, I'd say it's the type of chocolate cake that people who don't like chocolate would really like.
Interesting. As you're talking about the flavors and like I'm just like listening to you, I've become curious about your background in food. Have you been involved in like baking or food professionally in any way prior to launching your business?
So I am a pastry school dropout. At least that's the asterisk right now. I could always continue, like slowly take my classes, but right now it's not the priority with getting all in off the ground. And in the past, I've just spent the past five or so years taking baking very seriously, but not baking complex recipes. It really is just very flower focused. Cause when I was introduced to this role, I just became so obsessed that
just wanted to learn about it. And I even had have had green casings in the past, where I created my own flavor wheel with grains. And I mean, this was, you think it's a lot of fun, like, you get to eat a lot of different cookies just to figure out the flavor profile. But it was a it was an ambitious project. Yeah, a lot of this is being self taught being someone who is really engaged in grains. And doing research before I launched all in I spent
Speaker 1 (18:36.142)
a while even talking to researchers, like professors at different universities, even one in the UK and asking them about grains, asking them about the flavors, asking them about their growing patterns. And, you know, I just felt that if I'm going to be someone who puts myself on this platform and really try to amplify this really misunderstood ingredient, then I should know.
to an extent what I'm talking about.
Yeah, yeah. I think that's smart. I'm curious, you know, at like so many good food founders, when you have a mission, a very specific mission for your product and what you want to achieve and sort of what you want to change, right, in the industry, what you want to change in the mind of consumers, it's not always helpful to lead with that message. Like if you think about like Tony's chocolate, right, they're very like mission focused.
in their communications. But then there are other brands that are less loud about that and they're more kind of subversive about like, yeah, our product is delicious. And by the way, here are the things that we're doing differently. So I'm curious about the approach that you're taking with Ollin in terms of kind of how you're selling the product and marketing and positioning the product as you launch.
This was something I spent also lot of time thinking about. And I think that there are lot of mission driven brands that I resonate with and want to jump on board with. But from what I've researched, it's that the data doesn't really support it. A mission will only capture a seldom amount of people's attention. So I started to think about in a different way, like how could I be a little more subtle about it?
Speaker 1 (20:29.506)
how can I really commit to this and do this behind the scenes and kind of give a different messaging out there for folks. And I think a lot of that is also just accessibility in meeting the consumers where they're at. So right now I consider this all like one big experiment that we will continue to iterate as time goes by. But I decided that it was to lead with
gluten to lead with something that's already what I think of as the elephant in the room. Can people be united under that as a mission and then slowly kind of work your way into, Hey, there's also this rabbit hole here. If you want to enter it, please feel free. We will walk. We'll hold your hand. We'll introduce you to it. It's a lot of fun, but I didn't want it to be a big barrier of entry.
Right now with specialty flour baking, there's a lot of jargon. There's a lot of experts. There's a lot of folks who have very strong feelings on how things should be done. And this is kind of the softer opening approach. leaving room for folks who may not have initially have been drawn to it to kind of enter the better flour movement.
Yeah, it's really interesting. you, we do a questionnaire, you know, before just to kind of learn a little bit about you and where you are in your business. And I can kind of get inspired to ask questions. And one of the things you shared was that you technically established Allin in 2024, but that the real kind of like launch date was in May, 2025. So like very recently we're recording this in June. And I love to talk about the in-between. So like,
what it looks like, what you were focusing on, those 18 months roughly between sort of conception and launch, can you talk to founders who are listening about what you spent a lot of time on other than product development? Because I feel like that's very clear now, the testing and the getting the flavor profiles and things together. As far as the business aspect goes, what did that look like?
Speaker 2 (22:50.932)
leading up to launch day.
It was a lot of branding and marketing. Although when I reflect back, feel like I, I don't know, it's interesting being on this other side because I spent a lot of time thinking about like messaging, like who am I actually targeting? Who are potential customers and where do I fit in the current market? And I,
One of the things that I argue is that our competition isn't your conventional baking mixes. We're never going to compete with Pillsbury, Betty Crocker, Duncan Hines. just have completely different segments that we'll never be able to match. But the inverse is that there is still a market for premium baking, but right now it's just gluten free.
It's almost exclusively that I go into these retailers and I see other companies with a similar price point that we have, but it's all gluten free. I thought, well, is it so radical to target that consumer base? Because realistically only 1 % of the population has celiacs as an actual allergy that prevents them from ingesting wheat. So what about the other 99 % of gluten free customers?
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:20.002)
That's kind of where I really went a bit in deep in trying to do my own set of research and seeing how can I tweak this messaging to target folks like them, but without using these big health claims and without really casting a negative light on gluten-free. I think gluten-free is great. It has its purpose.
there for a reason, but how can I use welcoming language?
Yeah. I'm wanting to sort of be like, you know, listeners, like focus in on this. You've identified a gap, a legit gap in the market for a premium high quality cake mix that is not like gluten free. Or like you're saying, like having these specific health claims in my mind, it's like, I can indulge in a delicious cake. It's like, I also don't eat ice cream a lot because I'm not technically lactose intolerant, but it just
It doesn't make me feel good. Yeah. But there are times when I want ice cream and I will have the ice cream. I'm not going like I'm not going dairy free. You know what I mean? I'm going like all in best I can find ice cream. And I feel like you've given that to the cake department, which I think is really exciting.
Yeah, like the I feel like the equivalents that we have right now are a to dairy. So folks like Alex ice cream, Laurel's coffee, they're doing the same thing. It's, we want to indulge in this. And we want to indulge without the tummy ache. That's really what the messaging is with that. It's we like I think I understand why people bake people bake because they want a centerpiece. They want to create something. It's they want to do something beautiful as
Speaker 1 (26:11.926)
a way to draw people together or they want to stress bake. So why can't you have all of that and also keep, still care about what's also underneath or underneath the frosting.
Yeah. Yeah, I love that. So, okay, I think it's important to have done that work first. think, you know, whenever you're creating a product, creating a business, you have to validate who is my customer. What do they want? And not just what do they want, what are they willing to spend money on? Right? Like, do they wish that they had something, but like not enough to like...
really seek it out or really pay a premium for it. So figuring all of that out and then figuring out how to position yourself is so, so important. I mean, it's a bat. I don't like the company, but it's a really interesting example. Fair Life Milk, right? When they first launched, they went full on like, we're a protein milk and they had a certain kind of branding and identity and it didn't go off, it didn't move. And then they did a full rebrand and sort of changed their positioning. And now it's, think,
the best-selling milk possibly in the United States, much to the environmental impacts that it's having on our country. But anyway, from a business perspective and a branding perspective, it illustrates how important that is to the same product, reaching people. So I think it's great that you point out that work as being kind of the first thing that you looked at. At what point did you maybe start to look at the financials or how you wanted to
sell this product and where you wanted to sell it.
Speaker 1 (27:49.816)
So I think what the mistake I made was not so much that I was ignoring these questions. I kept in mind, you know, what did we have in mind to fund this? Where are areas that I want to be that I think could do really well with having all in as a product under shells. And I think this has a lot to do with just not having been in CPG in the past is that I didn't understand how much.
deeper I had to think about these things. What I know now is that it feels like I was thinking very superficially like about financing. It's okay. We need X amount of money to get the product made. And that was it. That's where my thinking stop was just what I needed to have it physically in my hands. But really, there's so much more that goes to that there are, do you want to start doing co pack researches? If you do, there's an investment that goes into that.
Do you have financing ready to buy boxes to ship product out to customers? you forgot that you need cases as well. So now you have to add cases into the budget and just all these other different things. They started to kind of pile and add up and I went, so this original figure that I thought we needed, it technically was the base, but you...
also need so much more just to consider other expenses that at the time I didn't think were critical. And also overestimating how much a single person can do. Like this is something that I am doing full time. Want to go all in on all in is my little quip, but realistically there is only so much that I can do. So then it's having to prioritize, okay, is this something that we can hire someone for?
quick project to be able to do is This something that realistically I can learn and do we have budget to? Even look into a coach to really teach me How do I open up these channels because I really thought it was just as easy as Calling someone saying hello. I exist. Do you want to purchase it? I didn't know that there was a very particular dance in pitching to buyers. That's something that's still really just my
Speaker 1 (30:13.582)
front of mind priority and also understanding that launch doesn't necessarily mean when you have the physical product in hand, like I could have started the sales cycle in January, not in May. So it's just those things that I thought I understood, but because I've only been in CPG at like a superficial level at that time, it was, it just went over my head.
Yeah. Yeah. You don't know what you don't know until you, yeah. Unless you have someone that you can tap into and say, here are all the things you need to be sort of thinking about. Yeah. So you talk a lot about having your product on shelf. Did you launch into retail stores? Are you selling DTC? What is, what is the channel strategy right now?
So right now we are D2C and we are going to be in pop-up grocery in July. So very excited for pop-up grocery in terms of getting on other shelves. That is all pending. I have a CRM that is having to look through each day, making calls, follow up emails, sending samples and looking forward to being able to say we're available to more folks.
Yeah. So Pop-Up Grocer, that's in New York City for those folks who maybe aren't familiar with Pop-Up Grocer yet. It's sort of equal parts or even possibly more like a marketing opportunity, very social media, social proof kind of opportunity, which is interesting, but that's like outside of your quote unquote region. So are you aspirationally looking to be a national brand? Are you thinking about growth sort of like slow and steady?
Are you wanting to go fast? What does that kind of look like in your head right now?
Speaker 1 (31:57.688)
So right now, where I see things going is going very deep and wide in targeted regions. So places like Austin here, New York city, maybe in the future someplace in the West coast, just because that is where you have a lot more of this pre-built community that's already invested in baking and seeing it as a bit more than a hobby where there's baking as lifestyle already established. I am not picky about.
limiting where I am in indie retailers in something that we can have like in a shop like fair. So that's something that I want to be able to expand on as well, just because I think those are a really great place for trial. It's a great place to see who resonates with your product. It's a great place to find different regions that maybe right now are underserved and you can look into it and start to invest in building there.
Yeah. For D to C, do you have a website, like a Shopify site or something? Yeah.
So we are all in y'all.com. O-L-L-I-N-Y-A-L-L. Love it. And that's because eat all in, bake all in, all that stuff, was taken.
Interesting. It was very cute. think you ended up with a great website name. I also think it may take time, but being online, think one of the advantages there is to see where are people buying from. I forget what brand it was, but they launched, I was reading about them and they had launched just online only and used that initially and then used that as far as like where do we want to go next? And they were very surprised that Ohio.
Speaker 2 (33:40.46)
was their biggest selling market. And they're like, all right, well then let's choose Ohio as our starting point for, you know, getting into physical retail stores. So I think it's cool. I hear in your answer that you're kind of taking it slowly, but also utilizing data and seeing how your product is performing. And, and I love that as a strategy because I think it can be tricky.
If you get too big too fast or you start to grow at a rate where like you grow too much and if the data is like, this isn't working, we're missing something here, it's much more expensive to make the change, right? Whereas if you are starting small, the corrections and the modifications and any pivots you have to make are a lot easier to do and a little bit like less expensive. So I think that's kind of a great way to go about it.
Yeah, and I'm also discovering the things that I want to be able to invest in the most whenever I'm able to start to be able to hire stuff. So already have like in my mind ideas of, okay, this is something that I'm okay letting go to someone else or hey, these folks can take over with this. But where I want to be an absolute control freak maniac is the research and reiteration and just
I wouldn't even say it's marketing like as a whole, but it's the strategic.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:10.158)
strategic design.
Yeah, think that when you say strategic design, what I'm kind of hearing and tell me I'm wrong here, but it's like, what is that repeatable thing that we can do that we know is going to... When we do this, the outcome will be X. When we do B, the outcome will be Y. Because without that, you actually don't have a strategy. You have things you're trying and you kind don't know...
It's not proven. Your success is not proven. So how do you sell yourself to another store or to someone? And then how do you have confidence in this is the right move for us? Because I've done the research and I think, you know, we did a book club. We have a book club and recently we read Beyond Entrepreneurship and it's called B2.0. having been in business now for almost 10 years,
reading that book was like going back to business school, but in a very different way. And one of the things that it focused on was what is the thing that you can repeat? What have you tested and tried? And they have this analogy of like firing bullets before you fire a cannonball. And I think that that's a great analogy for what you're doing also, where it's like, we're going to try things out in areas that we've researched and understand to be right for our brand.
And so we're going to fire some bullets and then once we see like, OK, we are landing on the target pretty consistently, we're going to launch a cannonball.
Speaker 1 (36:45.006)
And I mean, for me, my background is in data journalism. was with Google and their trends team for two years. that has conditioned me to expect things fast. Like that was an environment where you had an answer almost as soon as you asked it. so one of the things that's been challenging for me is having to wait. It's like, I have to wait for social proof. I have to...
build the community online first. I have to build and nurture these relationships with buyers, be on shelves, do demos. it's like, in my mind, I already want to jump to here and get into the iteration, but I have to do all these other things first. And all these other things are completely brand new to me. And so it feels like, yeah.
A lot of, I wouldn't even say bullets, are darts flung around, like someone spun me around, blindfolded me and I'm trying my best. And that's again, partially what I completely underestimated beforehand. Like if I could turn back time, it's spent much more trying to dissect what is, what are the priorities that I just need to have for social? What are the priorities and
Just.
Speaker 1 (38:11.682)
building the sales mindset to start getting orders coming in. I mean, quite frankly, these are things that I'm very happy to transition off to someone else in the future. But for now, I can't afford to live in the future. I have to live in the now and go through the discomfort, wear all the hats and see where it goes.
Yeah, that's such an important message. And I think something that's really great for other people to hear is like, A, when you're doing something totally new for the first time, it's going to be really uncomfortable because you aren't going to be good at it. Right? Like the first attempt, like, for sure, the first time you call on a buyer, it's not going to be your greatest sales call.
It keeps me up at night. Some days I think about it, I'm like, wow, that was embarrassing. Like, should I change my name and move out of the...
But you did it, right? And it's like, okay, this is part of the process. I cannot get better at this. And I can't know how to do it and how to teach someone else and how to prove my pitch, right? Because I think that's part of it too. It feels like, whew, I'd love to get this off my plate. And for brands who have the money, right, that they can go, you know what, I am going to hire someone else to do this. I think that
Honestly, I think that that's a mistake because you as the founder haven't figured out like what is resonating, what is the right message, what do buyers want to hear? And I think getting to know that to some degree is going to be really helpful. Even if the person you hire is so much better than you and maybe has a different like method or whatever, you can collaborate, you can understand, you can say, you know, that...
Speaker 2 (40:00.514)
doesn't work for a sales call because that's not what our brand is about. this is, you know what mean? Like there's just like direction and collaboration you can give when you've done it. Even if you weren't good at it, even if you hated it, that like just doesn't exist if you don't take the time to do it a little on your own. And I think that there's value to kind of knowing every part of your business.
Yeah, definitely. That's how I feel about self manufacturing. I thought, I don't have to cook anything. I don't have to bake it. I don't have to mill it. Like, how hard can it be to just blend some powders together?
You know what? We've done it. We can say we have. We have that experience, that appreciation, and I'm ready to pass that on to a co-packer.
Yeah. But in that, right, like you'll know how long does it take you to do it, right? Then there's an expectation of like, okay, if I'm handing this off, there better be this kind of improvement to the process. It better cost me this much money. You know, I think there's a lot of intel that comes from doing it yourself in this regard and then handing it off because we've, I've worked with clients who, I don't want to give away like product details, but so let's just say raw vegetables.
getting cut, like peeled, cut, cooked, and turned into a finished product. They were making it themselves for a long time and they knew, like, this is what our labor costs are. This is what the ingredients cost us. They had all of this data and they were slow at it and they didn't have the best equipment, but they did it for a while. Then they went to a co-packer and it was taking the co-packer longer. There were like these issues where the product that they were getting was more expensive than what the…
Speaker 2 (41:43.724)
what the brand had been paying for it. So it's like, hmm, that's a little bit of a red flag. And then the processing time was like no faster than the brand's processing time. And so just that intel was enough to go, hey, this partnership isn't going to work unless you can meet these kind of standards that we have in terms of time and stuff. it basically helped to end a relationship that wasn't going to go well long term and allowed them to go ahead and find the right co-packing partner for that particular brand.
Well, fortunately for us, we ended up hiring an office manager to handle all the coat packing business because I've read and heard of enough horror stories with finding the wrong partnership that I thought, you know what, if there's something we invest in right now, it's going to be this. Right. And already, like once a week, I get a call from her or an email and she goes, yep, yep, they have this.
They got your spec sheet, it all matches. They can do even your warehousing and it's going to cost less than what you're already paying right now. And I go, how is that even possible? Like for me, it's almost this alchemy, but she's been in the industry for so long. Takes no BS. I'm trying to censor my language and it just, for me, it's really inspiring because that's.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:08.45)
the position that I want to be in in the future, I want to keep growing to have like this confidence and keep growing to be a founder that is very firm on my feet. And I think when you're entering as an outsider, that's the part that can be hard and like way on you and on a not so good mental health day, it's thinking, it's just having a lot of self doubt. But then having to remind yourself that I've already made it this far.
I've already come up with this messaging and what I need to do is keep trying, keep iterating on it because who's to tell me if it can't work if no one's tried it already.
Yeah, that's beautiful. I love that. Before we started recording, you mentioned to me that you feel like you've experienced a win already because you've launched your product. You have a physical product that has been created, but that now this sort of next phase, of piggybacking on what you just said, there are moments of overwhelm or we're like, what am I doing? Where am I going?
And there are so many things I'm sure coming across your desk. How do you stay focused?
We had a lot of different life events happening all at once with launch. So I think for a lot of May, was, it's not that I wasn't focused, but I was disoriented, not really paying attention to the right things. And what I started this month doing is going back to basics, grounding myself. Like I need to have my routine.
Speaker 1 (44:46.166)
You to exercise. You need to go step on grass once a day, eat food that you made instead of going to Chick-fil-A for the 14th time and having a list of priorities that is just right there front and center. So if I read some posts on LinkedIn, read someone's sub stack and I go, Whoa, this company did that. Should I do it? Then I can turn my face around to my list of priorities and go, well, it's not on there. So.
Don't think about it.
Right? my gosh, that's very BABOYOT of you.
It's, have to, I was listening to a podcast and I think the host was saying how he's so undisciplined that he needs all these roles and structures in his life to kind of keep him standing. And I feel like I'm very much the same way. I'm very much a dreamer. So I need a lot of grounding.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:44.28)
Do you have a spot where you kind of like put ideas for the future? Like I have some friends in the industry who call it a parking lot where you're like, okay, I just saw this thing on social and like, it's not on my priority list. I'm just going to write it down here so I can stop thinking about it.
my Google notes I will take a screenshot throw it on there and go I'm not gonna think about this anymore yeah and if I do think about it again that's where it is
Yeah. And when you get to the bottom of your priority list and you need a new set of priorities, you can reference, know, perhaps reference that and see if those things are actually priorities. We do something here called rocks where it's like, okay, what are the things that are going to move this business forward or moves in the, you know, the direction we want to go? And each person on the team gets three rocks max like per quarter. And so we have all of these things that we need to do day to day, the tasks, the client meetings, the, the weekly things.
And then looking back at that rock every Tuesday when we get together as a team or like when we're like, what should I be doing? What should I be focusing on? It helps us reprioritize like, those are the things we're really wanting to move the needle on. So if I don't have a task right in front of me that needs to be done, or if I have too many tasks in front of me, we can kind of center or ground ourselves on like, what is this rock and should that take priority? It's really hard. I'm not the kind of, I don't know what.
how you would describe me, but like I can make a schedule for myself and immediately abandon it. Like I don't like to be told what to do even by myself, which is a very tricky personality to have.
Speaker 1 (47:20.61)
No, I resonate with it. I've always described myself as the overachieving slacker. Yeah. Where I've done just enough to always be considered part of the overachieving category, but I'm not type A. So it's almost like this contradiction.
It's like if you could get away with not doing it, you won't do it.
Are you really going to go above and beyond if you don't need to?
But here's what I think is also true is like we are going above and beyond, but our brains are telling us we're a slacker for like resting or, you know, I shared with a friend, possibly my therapist, and I like, I think I asked legitimately, does getting ready for meetings, like showering and getting ready for meetings, does that count as work time or personal time? And he was like, what kind of
why are you concerned about that? And I was like, well, because I want to make sure that I'm working eight hours a day so that I'm not slacking, but like, I'm not sure how to categorize that. And he was like, there's a deeper conversation we need to be having here because you don't actually have to work eight hours a day every day.
Speaker 1 (48:32.866)
Yeah, I really love that I have very grounded, just like internally peaceful friends because they're the ones who kind of give me those little reality checks where I'm just sitting here and going like, I'm not rolled out nationwide in Whole Foods already. I guess I'm just a big failure. And then they look at me and they go, they just start naming off all these different things. And then they go, are you sure?
You should be thinking like that. And then also just for my own mental health, I love to have my occasional, what I call rotting sessions. Their brain is turned off. I go nonverbal and I do not move from the same place on the couch for a few hours. And, and I just need it.
Same. The year is busy and I can usually maintain I can maintain long days, early mornings, lots of work and focus for a long – like an extended period of time and then I can't. Yep. And I will have that same session and then something happens like clockwork every year when the Netflix Christmas movies come out. It's like I've got a couple of hours in the morning in me and then the rest of my day is like – full confession, the laptop is on my lap.
But it's really a rotting session where I just like am kind of needing to like zone out and I get the work done, but I like need that time too. So if any of you listening are like Alyssa and I, email us, let us know, comment. us. Yes, yes. I have definitely the holiday rot, which is like my favorite. And then I think this is not a true like rotting session, but I love.
favorite rot.
Speaker 2 (50:19.916)
lunch in front of the television because it feels like, yeah, it feels like such a guilty pleasure. You're like, it's the middle of the day and I'm watching TV.
Yeah, no, I eat that up. We still have TV trays. And my husband grew up in like a really great family. They always sat down for every meal. And just to see me be like a complete degenerate like that. I'm like, look, do remember the movie Matilda, the family just eating in front of the TV laughing? That was us. Yeah, that's that's how my family and I bonded. Okay. Like, and I am not giving that up. Like, yeah.
We moved into this place just a couple of months ago and I'm actually in the market for TV trays because we don't have a regular wooden coffee table in our living room. I need something to safely eat on. But yeah, I'm looking for vintage TV trays right now. I love that we're just kind of normalizing. We work really hard, we can accomplish things and rest is okay.
It's part of the process, I think, of like, I tap out on creativity if I don't have those types of sessions, you know? And also getting outside, like you said, like touching grass. I like to run. That's like another way that I'm like, I'll kind of, if I'll have like a string of meetings, I can't just go sit on the couch because I don't come down from it and I can't kind of get back into like a creative mindset. So then I'll go outside and spend time outside. So there's different kinds of resets, I think, for depending on.
on what I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (51:59.128)
Honestly, this makes me feel so much better because whenever I do get that urge to rot or urge to just take a break, I feel so guilty. And just for any emerging founders out there, we really got to take care of ourselves like earth and foremost. And if y'all, anyone needs a little bit of inspiration right now, my biggest inspiration is actually Amanda Knox.
Binge through her two books, It's Waiting to Be Heard and Free. Waiting to Be Heard is all about the trial that happened in Italy and free is about what does being a free person really mean? What is freedom outside of incarceration even within ourselves? And it was so deeply profound. And just the main messaging is that her way to rebel against being in prison was by giving her life meaning.
So whenever I start feeling bad, whenever I start feel like I'm not doing enough, just the most recent mantra I've been telling myself is, Amanda Knox can make meaning of her life in an Italian prison, I can make meaning out of all of it. I can make meaning out of this, and it will take time. So just let it take time.
Yeah.
Yeah. This is, mean, we're at the conversation sort of going in bit of a different direction than usual, but I want to let it happen because I think I'm curious, because we have so many similarities. I'm curious if you also struggle with like what the outcome quote unquote should be and should look like. I have had such an attachment to outcome for my entire life that I'm actively practicing this year, letting go of the outcome and how I'm having to frame it as like
Speaker 2 (53:48.876)
failure is a possible outcome that I will accept. However, I'm going to do everything I can and like ask for support, you know, do the thing so that failure is not like definitely an outcome, but I'm willing to accept it and it has freed me in ways that are like really hard for me to like verbalize this year. So I'm just curious if you deal with that at all.
So yeah, actually, that's something that Amanda Knox has talked about in her book and that I've reframed for myself. And like for context, I'm listening to this when we're in production, where we're like working an eight hour shift, like handbagging, you know, hundreds of cake mints. it's very meditative to be able to think about that. one of the things I've started to introduce to myself is accepting that all in can fail, that there's actually
There's nothing inherent in it or nothing that I innately deserve for to succeed or for to scale to a certain area. And it's like a terrifying thought because you put so much of yourself, you put so much of your own reputation, your career, your own finances on the line to really get a product off the ground in a very unforgiving industry.
Yeah.
It's nice though, because I feel like I can get through almost this like mourning of it. Mourning understanding that there is nothing inherently fair about it and then that's okay. But I find that again to be grounding, not negative, because it makes me not feel desperate. Makes me not feel like I have to say yes to everything. It makes me go back to my why to look back on my list and go, is this supporting?
Speaker 1 (55:41.986)
these goals, it's not, I can accept that it doesn't need to happen. And it's something that I'm still practicing, not seeing a direct outcome. Yeah, no, it's, it's a very, very interesting experience. think many moons ago I was in Teach for America and during one particularly hard day, I was crying in an empty classroom and one of my mentors came in and was trying to comfort me and I'm like,
22 years old at the time with all these screaming seventh graders not really sure what I'm doing. I just graduated from college and my mentor told me, you know, what's the thing I noticed it's really hard for you TFAs. And I go what? She goes, well, it's the first time in your life that you can't pull an all-nighter and succeed.
Yeah. These are out of your control.
And yeah, and so I just think back to those experiences that I've had in my life to those words of wisdom and just understand that I have to keep reiterating it. You know, just because you learn a lesson doesn't mean you like just park it and never think about it again. You have to keep reinforcing what you've learned. Otherwise you just go back to
not so emotionally matured
Speaker 2 (57:05.378)
Yeah, I'll add that the idea or the acceptance that failure is a possible outcome, the acceptance of that is partnered with naturally for me that if it does fail, I'll be okay. It is a practice, but I have noticed that my actions are much more
I'll say intuitive. It's not that there's no data involved. I still project my cash flow. I still analyze my decisions, but I'm also tapping into do I want to do this? Does this feel right? Would this make me happy? Would this make my work more fun, more exciting? All of those questions that I think before this year, because this is really when it started for me, before I was like, I can't do that.
I can't do that. I need to be so careful because I don't want to fail. And I was actually, for me personally, holding myself back, holding the business back. And so it's been really, really freeing. So I want to thank you for sharing your experiences. I think this is an important part of being an entrepreneur and being a founder is not just how are you building your business, recognizing who we are as people.
and building the businesses in a way that works for us and practicing not being too hard on ourselves.
Absolutely. It's I think even if you're not interested in building a business, but you want to learn about yourself go build a business Will find out and grow it's it's just it's remarkable. I don't know. I'm just so overwhelmed by how Good my life is right now. Like and again, I'm not in any major retailer right now. I'm still working on getting sales But I still feel this
Speaker 2 (58:45.558)
You
Speaker 1 (59:06.552)
sense of completeness that I've taken this step and that I can, that it's possible for me to build a life that it's worth living for me.
Yeah, that's beautiful. Well, on that note, Alyssa, where can people learn more about Ollin and you and sort of follow your journey?
Yeah, so on LinkedIn, you can find me in the link to the show notes. That's where I post every single day and it is a non AI post. I post what is on my mind. So if you ever want to some insight into that, that's where it is. And for all in, you can find us on Instagram at all in y'all and that's O L L I N Y A L L and on our website at all in y'all.com. So yeah, excited to.
amazing.
to grow it and see where it goes.
Speaker 2 (59:58.102)
Yeah, we're going to have all of those links in the show notes so it's easy for you guys to connect with Alyssa and the brand. And Alyssa, just thank you so much again for being here, for spending an hour with me today. And I definitely will be following along on Ollin's journey and your journey. And we'd love to have you back in the future, no matter the outcome. I think a check-in would be such a wonderful time.
No, absolutely. And by then, I have real data that I can comb through.
I think that would be really exciting at a great episode angle. So I love it. Thank you. Looking for more content like this?
Thank you, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (01:00:36.992)
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