Commerce is Chaos

🍬 ALISON WHRITENOUR // UNREAL SNACKS CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER

Alison Whritenour has spent two decades turning mission-driven brands into commercially serious businesses — from Colgate-Palmolive to a decade climbing every function at Seventh Generation, surviving its Unilever acquisition, and now leading Unreal Snacks as Chief Commercial Officer. She also teaches the practical application of sustainable business models at the UVM Business School. She knows exactly what it costs — financially, operationally, and culturally — to do the right thing at scale. 🏗️ Mission-to-Margin Architecture — Framework for embedding values into product development, supply chain, and P&L decisions without sacrificing commercial viability 📦 Upstream Quality Compounding — Approach to pushing quality standards as far up the supply chain as possible so every downstream function — marketing, sales, retail — has an easier job 🤝 Contract Manufacturer Strategy — Method for leveraging co-man relationships to share ingredient costs, access emerging technologies, and reach critical mass faster than going it alone 🎯 Proposition Simplicity as a Growth Lever — Framework for distilling a mission-rich brand into the single most compelling consumer truth — and sequencing everything else behind it ⚖️ Values-Aligned Decision Making — Process for making hard calls on category exits, retailer timelines, and team trade-offs without losing the mission thread 🧠 Nostalgia as Brand Strategy — How Unreal uses taste memory and emotional familiarity to compete in a crowded better-for-you category without a legacy media budget Whether you're launching a purpose-led brand or scaling one that's already on shelf, Alison's frameworks will help you close the gap between what your brand stands for and what your business can actually deliver. Perfect for: CPG founders, mission-driven brand operators, retail and category growth leaders, challenger brand builders Guest: Alison Whritenour — Chief Commercial Officer, Unreal Snacks Host: Samantha Rose — Managing Partner, Hologram Capital & Founder, Endless Commerce This episode was recorded live and is part of our series on operational frameworks that drive real business results. Subscribe so you never miss an episode.

🛁 SHANNON DAVENPORT // ESKER BEAUTY FOUNDER & CEO

Shannon Davenport is the Founder & CEO of Esker Beauty, a clean, plant-based bodycare brand she launched in 2018 after 12 years as a trend forecaster for global brands including L'Oréal, Unilever, and Beiersdorf. She bootstrapped Esker to approximately $1M in revenue before raising outside capital, building a premium retail presence at Bergdorf Goodman, Net-a-Porter, Credo Beauty, and Anthropologie, and creating breakout products like the Body Plane — a modern reinterpretation of an ancient Roman strigil that went viral and became a defining brand moment. 🔧 Category Creation Without Fear Marketing — Framework for building consumer demand in a category people don't yet know they need 📊 Trend Intelligence as Founder Fuel — Approach to translating consumer insight into conviction when your own capital is at stake 🤝 Premium Retail Channel Strategy — Framework for balancing DTC ownership with strategic retail partnerships for positioning and revenue ⚙️ Counterintuitive DTC Growth Levers — How Esker cut ad spend by 70% during BFCM and dramatically increased net profit and margin 📈 Product Development as Brand Building — Process for creating products that expand category meaning, not just SKU count 🎯 Bootstrap-to-Raise Decision Framework — How to determine when to stay lean versus when outside capital actually accelerates the mission Whether you're building in an overlooked category or navigating the DTC-to-retail transition, Shannon's frameworks will help you build with conviction, stay capital-efficient, and create a brand that earns its place at premium retail. Perfect for: Clean beauty founders, wellness brand operators, DTC-to-retail builders, bootstrapped founders considering a raise Guest: Shannon Davenport — Founder & CEO, Esker Beauty Host: Samantha Rose — Managing Partner, Hologram Capital & Founder, Endless Commerce This episode was recorded live and is part of our series on operational frameworks that drive real business results. Subscribe so you never miss an episode.

🥄 CARYN WASSER // LITTLE SPOON CHIEF BRAND OFFICER

Caryn Wasser has spent nearly seven years building Little Spoon into the largest direct-to-consumer kids' food brand in the U.S. — scaling from a two-person startup to $150M+ in net revenue across 11 product categories, and recently engineering what Target called its largest food and beverage launch of all time: 23 products across six aisles in 1,800+ stores. Named a Breakout Brand Leader by Ad Age in 2023, she's built brand-led growth without legacy media budgets — using community, collaborations, and consumer truth as her core growth infrastructure. 🔧 Brand-Led Growth Architecture — Framework for making brand a core revenue driver, not a marketing halo 📊 DTC-to-Retail Brand Transition — Approach to maintaining brand intimacy and identity when moving from controlled e-commerce to national retail shelves 🤝 Community as Growth Infrastructure — Process for building two-way customer relationships that compound as a business asset over time ⚙️ High-Impact Campaign Construction — Method for building creative briefs and influencer strategies that generate outsized ROI without legacy media budgets 📈 Cross-Functional Insight Compounding — Framework for eliminating organizational silos so community signals, paid performance, and creative teams reinforce each other 🎯 Brand Partnership Evaluation — Strategy for choosing collaborations that drive measurable acquisition and attachment, not just awareness Whether you're building brand from scratch at an early-stage startup or navigating the DTC-to-retail transition, Caryn's frameworks will help you make brand the engine that drives real, sustainable business growth. Perfect for: DTC founders transitioning to retail, consumer brand operators, brand and marketing leaders, challenger brand builders Guest: Caryn Wasser — Chief Brand Officer, Little Spoon Host: Samantha Rose — Managing Partner, Hologram Capital & Founder, Endless Commerce This episode was recorded live and is part of our series on operational frameworks that drive real business results. Subscribe so you never miss an episode.

🍦 DANIEL GOETZ // GOODPOP FOUNDER & CEO

🍦 DANIEL GOETZ // GOODPOP FOUNDER & CEO  Daniel Goetz built GoodPop from a $3,500 investment and a borrowed kitchen at UT Austin into one of the U.S.'s top-performing better-for-you frozen novelty brands — generating over $63 million in gross sales across 10,000+ retail locations including Costco, Walmart, and Whole Foods. In 15 years, he has never taken outside funding, built custom manufacturing equipment when existing lines couldn't handle real fruit, and discontinued an entire product line rather than add a gram of sugar. 🔧 Mission-Preserving Scale Framework — How to grow a values-driven brand without trading away the standards that made it worth building 📊 Bootstrapped Growth Architecture — Approach to generating creative financial bridges and making every decision count when it's your own money on the line 🤝 Frozen Category Distribution Management — Process for navigating the handoffs from self-distribution to regional to national retail without losing product quality or retailer trust ⚙️ Values-Based Product Decision Making — Framework for knowing when to discontinue versus pivot, and how to protect ingredient standards under commercial pressure 📈 Competing Against Giants on Mission — Strategy for winning shelf space and buyer relationships at major retailers when you're up against massive legacy players 🎯 Strategic Licensing & Partnership Evaluation — Framework for identifying growth partnerships that extend the brand rather than dilute it Whether you're bootstrapping in a category dominated by legacy players or protecting a mission under commercial pressure, Daniel's frameworks will help you build a brand with genuine durability — without compromising the thing that makes it matter. Perfect for: Bootstrapped CPG founders, better-for-you brand operators, founders navigating retail scale, mission-driven consumer brand builders Guest: Daniel Goetz — Founder & CEO, GoodPop  Host: Samantha Rose — Managing Partner, Hologram Capital & Founder, Endless Commerce This episode was recorded live and is part of our series on operational frameworks that drive real business results. Subscribe so you never miss an episode.

🌿 HUDSON DAVIS-ROSS // PLANT PEOPLE CO-FOUNDER & CEO

Hudson Davis-Ross has spent nearly two decades building and scaling consumer brands, culminating in Plant People — the practitioner-grade supplement brand now ranking as the #1 seller at Whole Foods, Sprouts, and Erewhon. After co-founding RISE Brewing Co., running CROSBY Advisory, and serving on the founding team at ALOHA, Hudson bootstrapped Plant People through a major category pivot, a pandemic that wiped out 70% of revenue, and into approximately 117% year-over-year gross revenue growth from 2023 to 2024 — now backed by strategic investor Manna Tree. 🔧 Category Pivot Framework — Decision-making process for adapting when external forces, not execution, stall your business 📊 Survival Mode Operations — How to triage a business mid-crisis: what to cut, what to protect, what to rebuild 🤝 Omnichannel Profitability — Approach to managing unit economics and margin across DTC, Amazon, and major retail simultaneously ⚙️ Consumer Education at Scale — Translating clinical credibility into shelf-ready brand positioning in a noisy supplement aisle 📈 Category Defense Strategy — How to protect brand position as a trend you helped create becomes overcrowded 🎯 Strategic Capital Selection — Framework for evaluating investors after years of bootstrapping, and what "right fit" actually means at growth stage Whether you're navigating a regulatory headwind, rebuilding after a setback, or managing the complexity of going omnichannel while staying profitable, Hudson's frameworks offer a grounded, experience-tested playbook for founders building in the wellness and functional food space. Perfect for: Wellness brand founders, functional food entrepreneurs, omnichannel CPG operators, bootstrapped founders approaching their first raise Guest: Hudson Davis-Ross — Co-Founder & CEO, Plant People Host: Samantha Rose — Managing Partner, Hologram Capital & Founder, Endless Commerce This episode was recorded live and is part of our series on operational frameworks that drive real business results. Subscribe so you never miss an episode.