 Jay-Z invested. Couldn't you find someone more famous? Isn't that the coolest thing ever? My daughter loves listening to umbrella of Jay-Z and Rihanna song on the way to school and I literally like get goosebumps every day thinking like, they're investors in this company that I started because of you. Denise Woodard, founder and CEO of Partake. Are you ready to answer some questions? I am excited to be here. How much of a taste tax are you willing to pay for Partake to be able to be top eight allergen free? Not very much of one. I don't have any dietary restrictions, so I'm comparing it to normal stuff. And our expectation is that it tastes good, not just good for allergy friendly. Why is it called Partake? My daughter has a lot of food allergies. I thought she wouldn't be able to partake and so that is why the company is named Partake. Did you ever cook much or bake before Vivian? No, I did a lot of takeout. I did a lot of takeout. I think Vivian's food allergies forced us to cook at home a lot more and I'm thankful that we did start being more conscious of what we're eating and start cooking more at home. When did you have your aha moment? Our nanny actually had the idea for Partake. She has some equity in our company. I entered a pitch competition with just an idea and we won and then I was like, oh, this could actually be something. You worked as in pretty epic brands before starting Partake, Coca-Cola, FedEx, Philip Morris. What have you learned from those brands that you're applying to yours? Brand is much more than logo and packaging. It's every single touch point that a consumer has with your company. You have to be really cognizant about protecting that and amplifying that every single day and every action you take. I saw some OG packaging when doing my research but I only learned about you with the new cool packaging. How did you know you needed to improve your packaging? I did hundreds of demos and I could see people's face and their reaction and I would tell this wonderful story about what our brands did for and they'd look at the packaging and be like, that's not what I'm feeling. And so that direct consumer feedback was what made us change our packaging. So then who'd you go to to remedy that? I didn't have much of a budget at the time and so I had a dream agency that I wanted to work with and I started emailing their employees individually and I found somebody who was willing to do a moonlight project. Does press help more with selling into retail than gaining new customers? I think so. It was interesting after our seed round announcement, the press that we got, several large retailers reached out about bringing our products in whereas we saw a slight bump in sales but not a huge bump but it was the retail doors that had opened that was so valuable. I know you made this brand for your daughter but you strike me as someone who is gonna make a brand regardless, is that true? You know, I'd always had a side hustle. I had a ticket brokering business. I had an eBay business. I never really had anything that was scalable. I definitely have an entrepreneurial spirit so I think one way or another I probably would have ended up being an entrepreneur at some point. It seems like all the visible industries like entertainment have quickly had to figure out a diversity strategy but I've been to trade shows in the food industry and it looks pretty wonder-bred out there. Have you seen any meaningful movement in our industry? Yeah, and I think there's some retailers that have been walking the walk for a long time. We met Target's supplier diversity team in 2017 with Ziploc bag samples in the bathroom line at Expo West and they have been advocates for our brand ever since and so we're really leaning into those partners but I have seen some performative behavior from others in the industry. What specifically has been difficult being a woman of color in the food industry? I'm the first person in my family to graduate from college. I had to sell my engagement ring to start the business and I think that I've met so many founders and fantastic for them who have been like, oh yeah, just call your parents and ask them for money or just do this and I think that my lived experience is so different and not having people who can relate to that is often lonely particularly as a sole founder. Did you really sell your engagement ring to help fund the business? Yep, and I still just have a band. All right, now we're at the Flow Code Flow Card. So this season I'm with the brand Flow Code is sponsoring. They are a next generation QR technology that allows you to directly connect with your customers. What's gonna happen right now is your customized Flow Code is gonna be on screen. People will pull their phones out and be able to just with their native camera link to a custom Flow page for you. So what would you love Flow Code to put on your Flow page? Our new baking mixes. So I'd love to be able to share those with people. Is that possible? Yeah. Yay, okay cool. We have some new distribution coming out too so I'd love to let our customers know about that and link to a store locator as well. I see you hold a master's degree in supply chain management. Is it safe to say that comes in handy? It did come in really handy. I was the only employee at partake until January of 2020 and so I was doing all of the ordering of raw materials and tracking of freight and was very painful but that MBA did come in handy. Who does all your formulations? We found this gem of a human being via LinkedIn stocking. She was at a competitor of ours previously. It was like the one year in her career that she was freelancing. She also responds to cold emails on LinkedIn and we've been working with her since day one. Jay-Z invested. Couldn't you find someone more famous? Isn't that the coolest thing ever? My daughter loves listening to umbrella of Jay-Z and Rihanna song on the way to school and I literally get goosebumps every day thinking they're investors in this company that I started because of you. Where does his value come in? So it's Marcy Venture Partners. Jay-Z is one of the co-founders. One of the other co-founders, Larry Marcus, sits on our board. He's been a venture capitalist for over 20 years and he's just opened to my eyes to how much broader the business can be. So they've been really valuable in multiple ways outside of just kind of the press that comes from being associated with Jay-Z. What's the best part of the job? Being able to affect positive social change and I didn't even think about that. Like when I started the company, we started a fellowship program called Black Futures and Food and Beverage and we work with historically black colleges and universities to do a Chabani Incubator-esque program and help the students learn more about CPG and then gain full-time employment or internships and that's been just like the most magical thing. What's the biggest challenge you've had to date? We started 2020 with me as the only employee. We're 12 people now. We've hired everyone remotely. We work remotely and that's definitely been a challenge. I think everyone is super engaged in working towards the same goal but I'm excited to be able to get back in person and really start to nurture our culture. What roles do you think need to be in person and which ones are okay to be remote? Our director of operations is remote and she's very close to our co-packer and so that's one of the reasons for remote. Because the brand piece is so important to me, I want to be working really closely with the marketing team so I'd like them to be in person working together and with me and then my background's in CPG sales so I want to be able to work really closely with our sales team as well. So far in your company's history, what's been the best day and what's been the worst? The best day was seeing our cookies on shelf at Target, taking my daughter there and then seeing how she understands entrepreneurship in a very different way than I did. Like companies, brands and products seemed very abstract to me growing up and I thought there were just big machines behind them where she's like, oh, that's Ian's company. Oh, that's Ali's company and like believes that she can do something like that herself if she wants to. Worst day, I had never struggled with like anxiety or depression or any of those things and we were raising our seed round of funding and I was close to a hundred no's and I had a panic attack and I was like, this is really wearing on me mentally and so that fundraising journey and trying to raise the seed round of funding was pretty hard. What's been your biggest investment to date? Building out the team has been a very valuable investment that we've made. What is key to your business? Our people. What's been the biggest lesson you've learned so far? Following the golden rule, like this isn't rocket science, treat people the way you want to be treated, have respect for people, do what you say you're gonna do. How do you make sure your brand resonates and doesn't just check boxes? Because I am my own consumer, I feel really strongly about every single thing that we put out and then we also talk to our customers, our kind of day one OG customers from our Kickstarter days, people who have been amplifying our brand since day one and we go back to them and we ask them questions. How important are influencers? We haven't really baked out a full influencer strategy. It feels a little disingenuous to me and so we're thinking through how to do that in a way that feels right to the brand. What's something popular that really annoys you? Influencers. Who do you wanna steal market share from? I feel really grateful that there are so many brands that exist in the allergy friendly space because there's so many kids who need the product and so many adults who need the product and so I want our brand to grow and to bring new customers into the category but I'm not necessarily thinking about like killing someone else's brand. What's been the coolest moment so far? Closing our seat around to funding. If you had one marketing dollar to spend where would you spend it? Really close to the point at your purchase like on Instacart or at a demo, like in the store where somebody's about to make a decision whether that's online or in store. I've learned that a lot of brands have a certain tribe that really helps fuel their success. Who's your tribe? From all of our surveys, it actually appears to be multicultural Gen Z customers who are exploring a plant-based diet. I started the company for food allergy moms. It's actually been the group that's been slowest to adopt the brand. It's actually really like coastal multicultural customers who have really leaned in. Denise Woodard, founder and CEO of Partake. Thank you so much for coming on and answering some questions. It was an absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me. I'm Ian Wishingrad and I'll see you next time on I'm With the Brand.