🛋️ HELEN SMITH // ROO & YOU FOUNDER & CEO

🥪 DAVID MCCORMICK // AYOH! CO-FOUNDER & CEO

David McCormick co-founded Ayoh Foods with Molly Baz, the cook, writer, and food personality who has basically rewired how a generation thinks about cooking and eating. Together they built a chef-driven mayo made with 100% pure avocado oil, and created a condiment that's making sandwich craftsmanship exciting again. The lineup — Original Mayo, Hot Giardinayo, Dill Pickle Mayo, Miso Mayo, and Tangy Dijonayo — has earned a cult following for how the brand talks, looks, and shows up. It's also incredibly delicious. And David is the operational and commercial engine behind all of it. 🔧 Creator-to-Commerce Translation — Converting brand awareness and cultural credibility into repeatable operational infrastructure 📊 SKU Architecture Decision-Making — Designing a product line that builds authority without burying early-stage operations 🤝 Reformulation Execution — Managing a full-product-line reformulation without breaking manufacturing, margins, or consumer trust ⚙️ Co-Manufacturing Partner Evaluation — Finding the right manufacturing partners when your product has real quality requirements 📈 Brand Voice at Scale — Keeping a distinctive, consistent identity alive across channels as the business grows 🎯 Non-Traditional Retail Strategy — Breaking into an entrenched retail aisle and building shelf velocity as a challenger brand Perfect for: Condiment and sauce founders, DTC-first CPG operators, creator-economy co-founders, challenger brands entering crowded retail categories Guest: David McCormick — Co-founder, Ayoh Foods 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.

🛋️ HELEN SMITH // ROO & YOU FOUNDER & CEO

Helen Smith is the Founder and CEO of Roo & You, Canada's largest manufacturer of modular play couches for children. A Kurdish immigrant and former child and youth counselor, Helen built the business from a home office under the stairs: Self-funded, no outside capital, no industry connections. She grew her operations from a silicone teething brand into a design-forward kids' furniture company and one of North America's fastest-growing brands in the category. Helen launched her first pre-order with two boys under four and found out she was pregnant with her third five days before it went live 👶. Roo & You has since partnered with iconic IP, including Batman, Harry Potter, and Barbie, appeared on Dragons' Den, and earned the Canadian Small Business of the Year Award. 🔧 Pre-Order Launch Framework — How to validate and launch a first-of-its-kind product without retail presence or brand equity 📊 Community as Operational Asset — Building and managing a highly engaged customer community that drives product development, retention, and word-of-mouth at scale 🤝 Family Business Architecture — The structures and boundaries that make co-founding with a spouse and family members work operationally ⚙ Licensing & Collaboration Evaluation — Framework for assessing IP partnerships and brand collabs when you're a DTC-first business 📈 Category Defense Strategy — Approach to holding a market leadership position in a category you created once competitors arrive 🎯 Self-Funded Growth Playbook — How to scale without outside capital by leveraging community, pre-orders, and lean operations Whether you're launching a first-of-its-kind product, building a brand on community trust, or navigating growth without VC backing, Helen's story offers a genuinely different playbook for consumer brand operators. Perfect for: DTC founders, family business operators, self-funded entrepreneurs, community-driven brand builders, kids' and home category operators Guest: Helen Smith — Founder & CEO, Roo & You 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.

🍬 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.