In The Money: eCommerce, DTC, and CPG

COVID Killed 90% of His Accounts. The Pivot That Followed Built an Eight-Figure Wine Brand

What happens when a tech founder walks away from a successful exit, spends time drinking wine in Southern Europe, and comes back convinced the American wine industry is getting it completely wrong? Stephen Vlahos, Co-Founder and CEO of Gratsi, joins In The Money to tell the story of building an eight-figure, no-additive, zero-sugar wine brand from scratch, through a pivot that COVID forced on him, a format that nobody thought would work for a premium brand, and a subscriber base of over 30,000 people who keep coming back every month. Before Gratsi, Stephen co-founded Bellhops, a venture-backed two-sided marketplace that scaled to $15 million in revenue before he handed the keys to a team from Uber. What he learned about co-founder dynamics, internal conflict, and what kills companies from the inside shaped everything about how he built Gratsi. We cover: * Why Stephen left tech to sell wine, and what time in Southern Europe taught him about how Americans drink wrong * The Bellhops lessons: what happens when a founding team fights more internal battles than external ones * How Gratsi launched in Austin bars and restaurants, and why COVID shutting down 90% of his accounts turned out to be the best thing that happened to the business * The bag-in-box pivot: why a format associated with cheap wine became Gratsi's biggest competitive advantage * How Gratsi thinks about zero sugar and no additives as a product truth, not just a marketing claim * The DTC-to-retail sequencing playbook: how Gratsi uses ecommerce data to identify which markets to enter before a single case hits a distributor's truck * Why staying at three SKUs while the rest of the industry chases product proliferation has been one of his best decisions * Building a subscription wine business: what 30,000 subscribers actually means for capital efficiency and forecasting * The wholesale expansion strategy: how DTC revenue warms up a market before retail arrives * Fundraising in beverage alcohol: what investors are looking for and how the category is different from traditional CPG * What Stephen would do differently in the first 12 months if he started over * Where Gratsi is heading in 2026 and beyond If you're building in beverage, alcohol, DTC, or any category where the product format itself is the story, this episode is packed with hard-won lessons from a founder who's done it in two very different industries.

I Pitched Target for Ten Years. Here's What Happened When They Said Yes

What does it actually look like to grind for a decade in CPG before the category finally catches up to you? Jason Burke, Founder and CEO of New Primal, joins In The Money to tell one of the most honest origin stories in better-for-you snacking; twelve years of building, a lot of expensive mistakes, and a front-row seat to one of the biggest category inflections in modern grocery. New Primal commercialized the first grass-fed beef jerky for retail. Jason bet on the family lunchbox a decade before mom entered the meat snack category. He's now approaching $100 million in revenue, heading into 1,900 Target stores with six products, and running one of the leanest operations relative to revenue in the space. He pitched Target for ten years before they said yes. We cover: * Why the four-to-five year CPG startup-to-exit myth is just that, a myth * What the decade of grinding actually looked like: too many SKUs, too many retail markets, too many rabbits chased * Why Jason has never had self-doubt, and how that same quality hurt him in the early years * The crawl-walk-run retail playbook: why you should own your backyard before you go national * Why he'd start DTC-first if he were launching today, and spend two to three years there before calling a single retailer * The real cost of doing business with large retail partners and why going too wide too fast destroys cash * How long the retail J-curve actually is, and why you can't measure it the same way as DTC * The Whole Foods relationship that started with a workout and turned into 40 products on shelf nationally * Why every person at New Primal is an equity owner, and what that does to the culture * The lunchbox bet: how New Primal carved out a category position no other brand can authentically claim * The pantry stocking shift: how consumer behavior changed and why the timing was perfect for New Primal * Why $20 bags of meat sticks are selling at Kroger, and what that says about the premium snack market * The rotisserie chicken stick: from ideation to fastest-growing product in company history by 10x * Six products going into 1,900 Target stores: what that milestone actually means after a decade of pitching * What Jason would do completely differently in the first 24 months * Why survival is a skill, and why staying lean is a requirement, not a choice, in CPG If you're a founder in the grind wondering whether it's still worth it, or an investor trying to understand what category timing actually looks like from the inside, this episode is the most honest answer to both questions I've heard.

Why Corporate VC Has a Bad Reputation And How Rich Is Different

Corporate venture capital has a reputation problem. And according to Brian Bernstein, that reputation is mostly earned. Brian Bernstein, Investor at Rich Products Ventures, joins In The Money to make the case for why corporate VC doesn't have to work the way founders fear and to explain exactly how Rich Products Ventures is structured to be different. Rich's is an 80-year-old privately held food company. Over 95% frozen. Dozens of manufacturing plants, deep cold chain expertise, and food service and retail distribution spanning 110 countries. Their venture arm has been investing for eight years and they're leaning harder into branded CPG than ever before. We cover: * Why corporate VC has a mixed reputation and why those concerns are legitimate * How Rich Products Ventures maintains investment autonomy without business unit sign-off * The honest version of the pitch: patient capital, no LP pressure, no exit clock * Why all three members of the investing team are former operators and why that matters * How the strategic value add actually works in practice: cold chain, food science, R&D, food service channels * Where the value add fails and what founders get wrong when approaching a corporate partner * The shift from generalist food fund to branded CPG focus and what drove it * Portfolio spotlight: Evergreen (better-for-you waffles) and Delicious (permissible indulgence frozen novelty) * Why the freezer aisle is having its most exciting moment in decades * Investment stage and check size: late seed to Series A, $1-3M checks, minority follow-on * Two new strategies: venture incubation and growth equity for bootstrapped scaled businesses * What Rich Products Ventures is actively looking for heading into the back half of 2026 If you're a founder weighing whether to take strategic capital, or an operator trying to understand how corporate venture actually works when it's done right, this episode is the clearest breakdown of the model I've heard.

$10M Revenue. Two Employees. No VC.

What does it look like to build a hardware brand to eight figures with two employees, no VC, and a rule that every product must be first order profitable from day one? Sam Coxe, Founder and CEO of Flaus, joins In The Money to tell one of the most disciplined founder stories in the DTC space; a Skadden M&A attorney who put her entire life savings into a consumer electronics company, got told no by every professional investor, and built her way to $10M+ in revenue on a foundation of margins, focus, and relentless customer research. Flaus is the world's first electric flosser. Sam didn't just build the product, she built the category. And she did it one deliberate step at a time. We cover: * Why Sam left one of the world's most prestigious law firms to build a consumer hardware company * The $120K life savings bet: how she funded the first million dollars of product development * Why she got told no by every professional investor * The 10x bill of materials rule: how she engineered hardware margins before she had a factory * First order profitable from day one, what that actually means and how she's maintained it for seven years * The SurveyMonkey moment: 600 strangers, 15 questions, and the data that flipped her entire customer hypothesis on its head * Agency first, employees second: how she structured the team to stay lean as the business scaled * The dental conference circuit: 13 shows this year, all booked on credit card points, all ROI positive by end of show * One SKU. One color. One channel. The focus framework she's used since day one * The tariff crisis: 145% tariffs, a bonded warehouse strategy she pioneered before it went mainstream, and why strong margins were the only real hedge * Why she moved from air freight to ocean freight and how it offset the tariff impact entirely * 65% subscription attachment rate: how she thinks about refill cadence, churn, and personalizing the subscription model If you're building a hardware brand, a subscription business, or anything in a category that doesn't exist yet, this episode is the clearest blueprint I've seen for how to do it without burning through capital you don't have.

Why Growth Breaks Consumer Brands And How to Finance Through It

What happens to your cash when you land a purchase order from Target, Walmart, or Costco? Ben Brachot, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Dwight Funding, joins In The Money for round two to break down the working capital reality that most consumer founders discover too late and the financial infrastructure decisions that separate the brands that scale from the ones that quietly run out of runway. Dwight is one of the most active asset-based lenders to high-growth consumer brands, working alongside companies from their first $2M facility all the way through exits, IPOs, and everything in between. Their portfolio includes Olipop, Chubbies, Birch Benders, and dozens of the most recognizable names in modern CPG. We cover: * Why 2026 is shaping up to be one of the busiest years Dwight has seen and what's driving investor excitement back into consumer * The retail-first shift: why today's best founders are launching into Target, Walmart, Costco, and Sephora before building DTC * How Dwight underwrites brands as young as six to twelve months old and what they're actually looking at * The 270-day cash trap: exactly how a retail purchase order locks up your liquidity from inventory build to payment * Why you are effectively financing your retail customers and how to model for it before you sign * Olipop: from a $2M facility to $50M and why Ben called the founder to tell them it was time to graduate to a bank * The gross margin warning sign Ben sees before brands break: why "margins will fix themselves later" almost never works * Why the 13-week cash flow is more than a model, it's a full company operating system * The founder archetype winning in 2026: first principles thinking, veteran advisors, and no illusions about what retail actually requires * TikTok Shop as a real sales channel, what Ben is seeing from brands building 20-30% of revenue there * Why treating your lender like a vendor is one of the most expensive mistakes a founder can make If you're building a consumer brand and retail is on the roadmap, this episode will change how you think about cash, capital structure, and what it actually takes to scale.