From Grit to Growth

26. The Carrot That Disrupted the Pasta Aisle with Jacque Burklund

Most great businesses start with a personal problem. For Jacque Burklund, it was heartburn in the pasta aisle. In this episode of From Grit to Growth, Mark Hasebroock and Jennifer DiMotta sit down with Jacque, co-founder of Caranera, a carrot based marinara sauce that's quietly disrupting one of the most crowded shelves in the grocery store. What started as a spin on a Bloody Mary at a winter get-together turned into a product now selling in over 130 retail locations, with a soft launch on the West Coast underway. Jacque walks through the full journey: testing recipes in crock pots at family holidays, walking grocery store aisles to study labels, tapping store managers on the shoulder to get a two-minute pitch, and building a sampling strategy that became the backbone of their retail success. She also gets candid about where they are right now, hand-making every jar while trying to scale production, managing viral momentum, and learning to hand their "baby" off to a co-manufacturer. Whether you're in food, product, or any consumer business, Jacque's story is a masterclass in validating before you scale, selling before you pitch, and staying in front of your customer no matter how big you get. Sometimes the most disruptive idea on the shelf is the one nobody saw coming. Connect with us: * Jennifer DiMotta on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferdimotta/] * Mark Hasebroock on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-hasebroock-a5076625/] * Jacque Burklund on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacquelyn-burklund-868a111a0]  * CARINARA Website [https://carinara.com/] About Dundee Growth Partners  Dundee Growth Partners provides E-commerce leaders with the strategy, systems, and tools they need to face growth challenges and scale with confidence. With deep industry experience and AI-powered platforms, we help leadership teams scale in a sustainable way. Interested in learning more? Click the link below to get started.  * Visit the Dundee Growth Partners website [https://dundeegp.com/]

25. The Plateau Trap: How Ego Holds Founders Back

A lot of businesses don’t fail; they stall. In this episode of From Grit to Growth, Mark Hasebroock and Jennifer DiMotta unpack one of the most common and overlooked growth killers, which is the plateau trap. When a business is still profitable and customers are happy, it’s easy for founders to assume everything is working. But that’s often exactly when progress quietly stops. Their conversation explores how ego can prevent leaders from seeking outside perspective, why most companies wait too long to make changes, and how bringing in the right expertise can unlock the next phase of growth. They also break down what actually makes outside feedback valuable, how to get real buy-in instead of forced consulting, and why the best time to bring in help isn’t when things are broken but instead it’s when things are going well. Sometimes the difference between staying stuck and scaling comes down to whether you’re willing to let someone else challenge how you think. Connect with us: * Jennifer DiMotta on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferdimotta/] * Mark Hasebroock on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-hasebroock-a5076625/] About Dundee Growth Partners  Dundee Growth Partners provides E-commerce leaders with the strategy, systems, and tools they need to face growth challenges and scale with confidence. With deep industry experience and AI-powered platforms, we help leadership teams scale in a sustainable way. Interested in learning more? Click the link below to get started.  * Visit the Dundee Growth Partners website [https://dundeegp.com/]

24. The Power of Collective Buying with Bill Smithers

At a conceptual level, most business owners understand that more volume should mean better pricing. In reality, turning that idea into something that actually works is a lot harder. In this episode of From Grit to Growth, Mark Hasebroock and Jennifer DiMotta sit down with Bill Smithers, founder of CBUSA, to talk about how independent home builders discovered the power of collective buying. Bill shares the story of moving from a large national builder with massive purchasing leverage to running a small custom building company that suddenly had none. That experience sparked the idea behind CBUSA, a network that helps independent builders band together to gain real negotiating power with suppliers. But the journey from theory to execution wasn’t simple. It required convincing builders to trust each other, suppliers to rethink how they sold, and an entire industry to reconsider how purchasing power works. The conversation explores the challenges of scaling a network-driven business, navigating the housing downturn, and eventually selling the company during the COVID era. One takeaway: sometimes the biggest advantage isn’t scale alone, it’s collaboration. Connect with us: * Jennifer DiMotta on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferdimotta/] * Mark Hasebroock on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-hasebroock-a5076625/] About Dundee Growth Partners  Dundee Growth Partners provides E-commerce leaders with the strategy, systems, and tools they need to face growth challenges and scale with confidence. With deep industry experience and AI-powered platforms, we help leadership teams scale in a sustainable way. Interested in learning more? Click the link below to get started.  * Visit the Dundee Growth Partners website [https://dundeegp.com/]

23. Three Minutes With a Customer Can Change Your Business

There’s a weird thing that happens as companies grow: founders start farther away from their customers. Early on, you talk to them all the time. You hear what they like, what annoys them, why they chose you in the first place. Then the business grows, dashboards appear, teams expand, and suddenly “customer feedback” shows up as a report instead of a conversation. Mark Hasebroock and Jennifer DiMotta talk about why that shift creates blind spots for founders. Data matters. Reviews matter. Metrics matter. But none of them replace hearing directly from the person buying your product. A few short phone calls can reveal more insight than weeks of internal analysis, and this episode of From Grit to Growth deepens into it. One takeaway: call your customers. Connect with us: * Jennifer DiMotta on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferdimotta/] * Mark Hasebroock on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-hasebroock-a5076625/] About Dundee Growth Partners  Dundee Growth Partners provides E-commerce leaders with the strategy, systems, and tools they need to face growth challenges and scale with confidence. With deep industry experience and AI-powered platforms, we help leadership teams scale in a sustainable way. Interested in learning more? Click the link below to get started.  * Visit the Dundee Growth Partners website [https://dundeegp.com/]

22. Koio: The Sneaker Brand That Survived the Retail Collapse with Chris Wichert

Chris Wichert didn’t set out to build just another sneaker brand. He and his co-founder wanted to take real Italian craftsmanship and make it accessible, modern, and wearable for everyday life. So they went to Italy, knocked on factory doors, launched pop-ups in New York, and slowly built Koio from the ground up. For a while, things moved fast. Retail stores opened. The team grew. The brand expanded into more styles. Then everything tightened up. Stores closed during COVID. Online ads got expensive. Investors became more careful. And Koio had to take a hard look at itself. Chris talks about that stretch without dressing it up. Cutting back product lines. Letting people go. Admitting the brand had drifted. Getting back to what customers actually cared about. It was uncomfortable, but it forced clarity. This episode feels like a real look at what building a brand actually requires once the early momentum wears off. Connect with us: * Chris Wichert on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-wichert1/] * Jennifer DiMotta on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferdimotta/] * Mark Hasebroock on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-hasebroock-a5076625/] About Dundee Growth Partners  Dundee Growth Partners provides E-commerce leaders with the strategy, systems, and tools they need to face growth challenges and scale with confidence. With deep industry experience and AI-powered platforms, we help leadership teams scale in a sustainable way. Interested in learning more? Click the link below to get started.  * Visit the Dundee Growth Partners website [https://dundeegp.com/]