Beauty brand Mudita Earth landed deals with Natural Grocers, Meijer and KeHE Distributors from buyer introductions made at ECRM Sessions. However, each of these retailers initially said “no” to the brand’s Co-Founder Pooja Chopra. In this interview, Chopra shares how she turned each of these “NOs” into a resounding “YES” via listening to the buyers’ needs, then adjusting her products, packaging and approach to give them each exactly what they needed for their respective category objectives.

Sisters Jordan Catapano and Jocelyn Dunn are truly examples of how persistence and tenacity can pay off for brand owners. Over the past decade, they went from bartenders to authors to owners of a bartending business, then became CPG brand owners with the launch of a line of cocktail mixers called This Girl Walks Into a Bar.

Then earlier this year they lost the bartending business to the Los Angeles wildfires. During this same time, however, they landed KeHE Distributors from a meeting at ECRM’s On & Off Premise Adult Beverage Session, which led to a deal with Total Wine & More. Most recently, they earned a Fast Pass at Walmart’s Open Call from a RangeMe submission.

In this podcast, you’ll hear how the sisters stuck with their passion through this wild roller-coaster ride and evolved their business over the years into the fast-growing emerging brand it is today.

Managing the Growth of CPG Teams: Founders Share Their Stories

Cosset, Global Beauty Care and Okay Pure Naturals each started with only two or three people, and over the years have grown their companies to dozens of team members. This growth comes with several challenges, such as deciding which roles to fill first, finding the right hires, grooming future leadership, and handing off the reins of certain responsibilities.

In this podcast, ECRM's Joseph Tarnowski speaks with the founding members of each of these brands, who share how they handled their respective growth journeys and what it takes to scale up a brand.