[RIP Cold Brew] Brendan Flannery

[RIP Cold Brew] Brendan Flannery

Brendan Flannery is the co-founder and CEO of RIP Cold Brew, a ready-to-drink cold brew brand built around smooth coffee, shelf-stable cans, and a more active, on-the-go use case. In this episode, we get into how Brendan and his co-founders developed the first RIP product, why making shelf-stable canned coffee taste good is harder than it looks, and why the brand leads with energy and lifestyle rather than traditional coffee language. We also talk about early retail testing across premium grocers, convenience stores, restaurants, bars, and lifestyle spaces, how RIP thinks about energy drinks without positioning directly against them, the economics of DTC when you are shipping cans of liquid, and the company’s upcoming expansion into half-caf, latte, and flavored black coffee. I learned a lot during my conversation with Brendan, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

9 Mini Interviews

This episode of Unit Economics is a little different. At a CPGD dinner party hosted at Maxwell Social, I tested out a new pop-up podcast format with the help of Theorist Studios. Instead of a traditional long-form interview, founders sat down for quick, two-to-four-minute conversations answering a couple questions each. The result is a fast-moving collection of mini interviews with emerging founders across hospitality, food, beverage, alcohol, skincare, and better-for-you products. Guests include David Litwack of Maxwell Social, Sofia Paloma Juarez of Casa J Tequila, Erin Barrett of Goldilocks, Anna Zesbaugh of Corpse Reviver, Joe Rotondo of Smearcase, Ilay Karateke of Bezi, Aaron Sager of Caltein, Liv Truesdell of Frost Buttercream, and Megan Black of Sonni. Together, they share what people misunderstand about their industries, what the CPG world gets wrong, and the small decisions that shaped their brands. It’s not a typical Unit Economics episode, but it was a fun experiment in capturing founder insights in real time, and as always I still managed to learn a lot.

[YUZUCO] Basil Beshkov

On today's episode, I sit down with Basil Beshkov, co-founder of YUZUCO [theyuzu.co]. YUZUCO is importing specialty citrus juice and makes citrus ingredients with yuzu at the center of the business. Yuzu has been used across Asia for a long time, and it's recently become more visible in the U.S. through fine dining, cocktails, bakeries, and specialty food. But YUZUCO is built around a harder question: how do you take an ingredient that chefs and bartenders already want and make it available in formats, quantities, and prices that can actually work across restaurants, beverage programs, bakeries, and consumer products? In this conversation, we get into the early decision around launching with Super Juice for bartenders, the work of sourcing from Japan and other growing regions, why peel, powder, oil, and ready-to-drink products all play a role in the business, and what happened when a random sample request turned into a Starbucks bakery launch. I learned a lot during my conversation with Basil, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

[NOON] Jane Wong

On today's episode, I sit down with Jane Wong, co-founder of NOON [noon.world]. NOON is making functional mushroom gummies for focus, stress, sleep, and energy, but the product is really built around a harder question: how do you take ingredients that can feel medicinal, earthy, or unfamiliar and make them easy enough for someone to use every day? This creates a lot of hard operating questions. Gummies are familiar and easy to try, but they're also a difficult vehicle for serious functional ingredients. NOON had to find a manufacturer that could handle a dual-layer gummy, preserve the strength of the formulation, make the product taste good, and still create something that could sit on shelf without being mistaken for candy. In this conversation, we get into all the formulation work behind making the product taste good, the trade-off between gummies, tinctures, pills, and powders when thinking about form factor, how packaging can help explain an unfamiliar product, and what changes when a young supplement brand needs to start preparing for a launch at Target. I learned a lot during my conversation with Jane, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

[Gato Dates] Gabriella Labi & Tonya Reznikovich

On today's episode, I sit down with Gabriella Labi and Tonya Reznikovich, the co-founders of Gato Dates [gatodates.com]. Gato makes chocolate-covered stuffed Medjool dates using organic ingredients, premium nut butters, and a clean-label approach that makes the product feel more like a boxed chocolate than a conventional snack. What started as something Gabi made at home for friends and family quickly turned into a business with demand across farmers markets, coffee shops, specialty grocery, and gifting. In this conversation, we get into what it actually takes to build that kind of product into a real CPG brand: sourcing expensive ingredients, managing handmade production, improving labor costs through automation, navigating cold-chain shipping, and figuring out how to price a product that works as both an everyday treat and a gift. I learned a lot during my conversation with Gabi and Tonya, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.