Chrisi Hammer on Scaling Sunshine Buns, Retail Growth, and Surviving Entrepreneurial Chaos

In this episode of Growth Mavericks, Adam Callinan sits down with Chrisi Hammer, co-founder of Sunshine Buns, to discuss the realities of building a high-growth consumer packaged goods brand. What started as a beloved family cinnamon roll recipe evolved into one of the fastest-growing frozen bakery brands in retail.

Chrisi shares how Sunshine Buns pivoted from a local bakery concept into a national CPG brand, the challenges of retail distribution, working with brokers, managing co-manufacturing relationships, securing major retailer partnerships, and navigating the constant uncertainty that comes with entrepreneurship.

The conversation also dives deep into founder psychology, imposter syndrome, problem-solving under pressure, and why successful entrepreneurs learn to become comfortable with uncertainty.

If you're building a consumer brand, scaling a business, launching a product, or simply trying to survive the entrepreneurial rollercoaster, this episode is packed with practical insights and hard-earned lessons.

In This Episode

•  Building Sunshine Buns from a family recipe 
•  Transitioning from brick-and-mortar to retail distribution 
•  Scaling from local sales to thousands of retail locations 
•  The realities of frozen food logistics 
•  Finding the right brokers and retail partners 
•  Managing rapid growth and operational challenges 
•  Imposter syndrome and entrepreneurship 
•  Becoming comfortable with uncertainty 
•  Problem-solving during business crises 
•  Lessons from scaling a consumer packaged goods company 

Key Takeaways

✅ Growth creates new problems—not fewer problems

✅ Entrepreneurship is often saying yes before you know how

✅ Retail success depends on relationships and execution

✅ Imposter syndrome doesn't disappear with success

✅ The best founders become elite problem solvers

✅ Confidence comes from surviving challenges, not avoiding them

Explore More

Growth Mavericks Podcast: https://www.growthmaverickspodcast.com

Pentane: https://www.pentane.com

Sunshine Buns: https://www.sunshinebuns.co

Creators and Guests

Host

Adam Callinan

Adam Callinan is the founder of Pentane, a financial and advertising command center that empowers brands to drive predictable revenue and intentional profit. Previously, Adam co-founded BottleKeeper, a bootstrapped consumer brand that scaled to $8M in sales within three years – without employees – and was later acquired in 2021 as an eight-figure business with a team of four, marking Adam's second successful exit.

What is Growth Mavericks?

This podcast dives deep into the tactical moves that drive business success, as well as the mental and physical resilience required to sustain it.

Hosted by Adam Callinan, a seasoned entrepreneur with multiple exits, an avid outdoorsman, and an family man with crystal-clear priorities, each episode unpacks real-world challenges, actionable insights, and the mental and physical disciplines that fuel long-term personal and professional growth.

Whether you’re scaling a startup or refining your mindset, disrupting your default is how business and life strike a balance.

Chrisi Hammer (00:01.518)
Hi, how are you?

Adam Callinan (00:02.786)
Hi.

I'm great. How are you?

Chrisi Hammer (00:07.49)
You know what's funny is I was just on Adam's podcast shelf help, like an hour before this. So funny. I I scheduled these both for the same day and I didn't realize. So I'm like, I have two podcasts with both Adams today. That is so funny. So anyway, here we are. it was Finn it was Finn.

Adam Callinan (00:23.661)
Okay, well let's turn that off. How'd that one go? What did you hate? What did you hate so I can avoid that?

Chrisi Hammer (00:32.595)
I don't hate any of it. It was fantastic. Adam's awesome. The podcast is awesome. So it was great. It was a great conversation.

Adam Callinan (00:42.617)
Are you are you doing a lot of podcasts? Are you on the the circuit?

Chrisi Hammer (00:46.626)
You know, I've I think I think this is like my third this week and then I have another one next week. It was sort of like they all I scheduled these all like three weeks ago, but I scheduled them all for the exact same time. So I don't know. No, I'm not on many, but some. So Yes. Yeah, I'm on a I'm on a tour this week, I guess. So it's fun. We're we're having fun.

Adam Callinan (01:04.431)
No, good good for you. I can only do like one every three days because my like melt.

Adam Callinan (01:15.171)
Awesome. What do you have any questions for me? Any

Chrisi Hammer (01:16.3)
Yeah.

Adam Callinan (01:23.119)
Anything?

Chrisi Hammer (01:23.192)
I don't think so. I don't think so. I'm I feel you know, I'm not sure what we're gonna talk about, but I'm sure it's gonna be great.

Adam Callinan (01:33.689)
The thesis is is part business, you know, e-com, fun, operator stuff, mainly where, you know, we will just we're gonna go find rabbit holes and we're just gonna jump into rabbit holes. And then yeah, entirely conversational. And then the second part, which is not half, it will come in toward the end, is talking through some things that you do or how you think about.

Chrisi Hammer (01:46.624)
I like it. I think that's awesome.

Adam Callinan (02:03.199)
dealing with kind of the hardship of entrepreneurship and these like wild up and down swings that we put ourselves through and how you make it out the other side of them. So yeah. Yeah. yeah. So if you don't have any questions, obviously we can edit anything if we need to. We don't generally need need to, but but we can. If something comes up, yeah, you you let me know.

Chrisi Hammer (02:13.954)
Fantastic. I think that's great. I'm all about it.

Chrisi Hammer (02:24.536)
Great. Yeah, just let it rip. Yeah. I'm all I I think it's great. I think it's

Adam Callinan (02:31.055)
Amazing. Where yeah, we're just gonna we're just gonna go. Where in the where in the US are you?

Chrisi Hammer (02:37.108)
I live in Utah, so our headquarters are here. I grew up in Los Angeles, from Manhattan Beach, so I'm a beach girl, but I live in the mountains now. I've lived in the mountains longer than I've lived at the beach, so I guess I'm I'm not a mountain person. I'm still a beach person. I just happen to live here, so

Adam Callinan (02:44.485)
What?

Adam Callinan (02:55.053)
You're you're a beach person masquerading as a mountain person. Is that how that works? So Manhattan Beach, my wife and I were in Manhattan Beach from two thousand nine. We moved to Montana in twenty twenty. We had a place in Manhattan Beach until the summer of twenty three. We were splitting time back and forth. Way more time in Montana, state of California. Don't hear this and think you can come get me. We were here. We were here like three hundred and thirty days a year.

Chrisi Hammer (02:58.082)
Yes, yes, yes. Where do you live?

Chrisi Hammer (03:07.487)
my gosh, amazing.

Chrisi Hammer (03:14.334)
fantastic. Yeah, no, I won't. my gosh, that's so fun. My husband's actually from Calispel, so he's he's a Montana boy. Yeah. Where are you in Montana? Bozeman, okay. So you're s that's south, right?

Adam Callinan (03:24.603)
really?

Epic. Awesome. And Bozeman.

Also yeah, also for commonly known as Bosangelis, current currently.

Chrisi Hammer (03:37.069)
Yes, that's that's exactly you know, those you know, the LA people have taken over Utah and Montana and Wyoming and and here we are. You're in Montana and I'm in Utah. We're did you grow up in Los Angeles? okay. Cool. Yes, yes. Flagstaff is very mountainous. It's interesting. It's it's pine trees and desert. It's an interesting place. I love Flagstaff. It's beautiful.

Adam Callinan (03:52.249)
I grew up in Flagstaff, Arizona, which is like Bozeman. It's pretty similar.

Adam Callinan (04:05.327)
Yeah. Yeah. So how did you find yourself? No, she's from Phoenix. We ended up out there for work in like in like two thousand eight.

Chrisi Hammer (04:06.626)
That's so fun. So is your is your wife from Manhattan Beach? that's so funny. It's such a okay, it's such a it's such an interesting not a lot of people know about Manhattan Beach. It's awesome. They're learning Yes.

Adam Callinan (04:20.761)
They're learning about it now. I don't know when's the last time you went back to Manhattan Beach, but I could tell you it has been discovered. Not not in a great way.

Chrisi Hammer (04:26.164)
No, my brother lives in my brother lives in Redondo, so he's he's still very much there. tons of family still there, but my parents are relocated to Utah a while ago, so they're well my dad passed away, but my mom's still here and two of my brothers are here, but I have one

One that's unfortunately a cop, for LAPD. So he's he you know, he's in violent crimes, elite detective, so he's got his hands full down there. Yes. Yes. Yeah, yes.

Adam Callinan (04:54.34)
Yes.

Adam Callinan (04:58.767)
That sounds like a very difficult that yeah, there's a whole lot there going on. We were down there recently for a beach life festival. Do you know that? Yeah.

Chrisi Hammer (05:08.54)
fun, yes, yes. it's so it's so magical. Like I just I love Los Angeles. I hope they can get things straightened up because it is it is truly one of the coolest cities and states and the people are fantastic and it's a vibe, you know. So they'll you know, they're gonna find their way some way or another.

Adam Callinan (05:31.03)
It's the the reality like we've we've been we still go back there right reasonably frequently. My wife still has some work back there. We've we're back there for a week over spring break, and the amount of crime in Manhattan Beach that we saw in the course of that one week is astonishing. Like it has just changed so dramatically and it's really sad and and we stopped talking about this because it's depressing. So I I something has to change.

Chrisi Hammer (05:47.945)
It's

Chrisi Hammer (05:54.613)
I know it's depressing. It's depressing. Let's just hope they're gonna find their way, you know? They're gonna find their way. Yeah, somehow.

Adam Callinan (06:00.1)
Yeah, they they will, they'll figure it out hopefully. Someone'll someone'll do that. So how do you how do you find yourself in the world of entrepreneurship? How'd you get here?

Chrisi Hammer (06:09.376)
Well well we own Sunshine Buns, so it's a cinnamon roll company that started in a brick and mortar and has now morphed into CPG, retail landscape. we're going to be in about forty five hundred doors by the end of this year. So we have scaled and squal scaled quickly. So I have

Lots I can contribute into the highs and lows and ebbs and flows of entrepreneurship as they are many in a high growth company like ours. So that's where I find myself.

Adam Callinan (06:47.673)
Let's go back to the beginning. You say it started as a single retail location?

Chrisi Hammer (06:52.962)
Yeah, we we have a brick and mortar like a fresh store that you can come in and get buns that we bake every single day. We have a rotating menu lineup of sort of like the crumble of cinnamon rolls. So you can get always there's always two signature flavors and then there's rotating two flavors that come every single week.

But we were going to launch in franchise. Like we were going to build essentially the crumble of sunshine of cinnamon rolls. And then once we opened up our store in August of 2024, after we had been baking and selling and delivering from our house, and then opened up the brick and mortar, we were like, let's, you know, go all in on franchising. And then pretty quickly after we opened our doors, we had a local gas station.

That had 75 doors approach us and say, like, hey, I want to sell these. We want to do wholesale. And it sort of just clicked right then and there, like, my gosh. We thought this was going to be a franchise business, but this should be a wholesale business. So then we took pretty much all of 2025 developing, you know, logistics and cold chain and packaging and commands and all of all of the nitty-gritty that goes into CPG. And then we launched in 2025, late 2025.

in about five hundred doors here in the West, which you can get them in Bozeman. So they're where you are. You can get them now as we speak. they're they're there.

Adam Callinan (08:24.677)
Hmm. Where? Where where can I get him in Bozeman? Do you know?

Chrisi Hammer (08:30.317)
Little it's through associated foods, so they're well they're in Winco, so you can get them in Winco, but you can also get them in like Lynn's and Mike's and Dan's and I think there's town and country's and Bozeman. Yeah. Yeah, so there's they're there. so you can get them there. But that was sort of where we launched initially in the West and then we went to fancy food in January in San Diego and it was a hit. I

Adam Callinan (08:42.404)
yeah. Tons. There's like a thousand of them. They're everywhere.

Chrisi Hammer (09:00.251)
Have an interior design background, so we're really intentional in our booth. It looks more like a storefront than it does.

Than it does a traditional booth that you would see at one of these trade shows. So we got a lot of attention and buzz, signed with a national brokerage, and then went to Expo and thing, it was just wildly successful at Expo. and then pretty quickly after that, you know, having national conversations with the big box stores, we'll be in Costco, LA in first week of August, and then a couple national rollouts.

That I am going to announce here in the next week, but I don't have the green light to announce it yet. But you can guess that we're in gonna be in two huge national retailers by the end of the year. So I I'm not exactly sure even what the beginning question was, but it was Yeah.

Adam Callinan (09:45.369)
Yeah. Yeah.

Adam Callinan (09:54.534)
No, it's fine. We're just gonna keep going. So did you just always love cinnamon rolls? Like where did this start?

Chrisi Hammer (10:00.258)
It's my mom's recipe from the nineteen seventies. she's Mima, affectionately known as Mima. She came up with the recipe. So I I grew up with it my entire life. I had cinnamon rolls, which she came up with a recipe and would sell them in like local fundraising events and charities and give back to the community. And she came up with a recipe and actually called them sunshine buns. And so for ten years before we started the business, I wanted to start this business and my mom was never interested.

And then I finally convinced my best friend and her husband alongside my husband to start the business in fall of 2022. And right then and there on that double date, we got the domain from GoDaddy. We launched the Instagram page. And in six days, we were live selling and baking just from our houses. That quickly got out of control. So signed the lease on the brick and mortar and opened that in August of 2024. And then it was just immediate shift.

into retail like that is so much of a smarter play. really hard logistically to do that. But like I said we took some time and and really figured that out before we launched.

Adam Callinan (11:14.086)
So this been a whirlwind. I mean, it's a short it's a a short window. I mean, I don't have a lot of I have a lot of experience in e com and consumer brand, but not a lot in consumables in the consumable world.

Chrisi Hammer (11:15.373)
This is a whirlwind.

Chrisi Hammer (11:24.461)
Yes, yes. Yeah, we sort of we sort of skipped the entire

e-com ecosystem and went straight into retail doors. and you know it's hard logistically, you I'm sure you know, since you've done a lot of e-com, it's hard to ship frozen food. it is expensive and you know we're not like in the glory days of Facebook where it was easier to capture consumers on, you know, buying those leads on Facebook like it is now.

Adam Callinan (11:52.966)
Yeah.

Chrisi Hammer (12:00.13)
it's a totally different landscape. So we do have a small presence online, but it's really like Instacart and DoorDash through our retail partners than it is like direct ship because that's so expensive. So it's easier. Yeah. Yeah. Which it's really difficult to enter a retail distribution model.

Adam Callinan (12:15.8)
Yeah, the distribution model makes so much more sense.

Chrisi Hammer (12:24.941)
But you know, we we have a white space. You probably don't know this, but our product is a fully baked product that's frozen that you just put in the microwave for 45 seconds and you have a cinnamon roll. So it's like the very first of its kind where it's already baked and has cool branding and a cool story and a great product. So we we sort of hit this white space, which is how we've been able to explode as much as we have in the last

Adam Callinan (12:56.686)
Was it always frozen?

Chrisi Hammer (12:58.571)
No, we so we have our fresh store. And originally when we were gonna do wholesale, we were like, We'll get it to them fresh, and we were like, That's way too hard. because we would have to set up like commissary kitchens all over the country, and that just wouldn't have worked. So my mom, who is the inventor of the bun, was like, This is really great frozen. And at first we were like, We don't believe you, there's no way that it can be. and then we pressure tested what she said. We put them in the freezer, eat them next day. We're like, that's amazing, but what does it taste like in a week?

Same thing, amazing. What does it taste like in a month? Same thing, amazing. So we were really lucky that we sort of had Mima as our secret weapon because she had already tested this for decades and decades in every possible format. And that was really the thing that set us apart from anyone else in the space, is that ours was already baked, and and packed in a single pack so that

it could be consumed by one person or multiple in the in the same setting, sort of like uncrustables did, you know, for P V and J. Sort of the same thing. So no, hasn't always been frozen. Yeah.

Adam Callinan (14:11.366)
Frozen and crustable is amazing. Yeah. No, no, that makes sense. Yeah. I had the guys from Froco, which is a frozen protein like ice cream, basically. And we talked through a lot of the same challenges that that I honestly was entirely ignorant to having not been not been in the food side of distribution.

Chrisi Hammer (14:19.758)
Yes.

Yes.

Chrisi Hammer (14:28.59)
Yes. Yeah, it's it is a wild e com frozen is so hard to capture, you know, and it's just too expensive because you're

You know, like for us to overnight our samples through UPS, it's like five hundred bucks. You know, like there's just no way that you can scale that, you know, unless now all we need is for Uber and Doordash to start driving semis with freezers in the back of Then then you can get it right away. Yeah, it's so reasonable. So reasonable.

Adam Callinan (14:46.305)
Yeah. That's not

Adam Callinan (14:56.292)
Yeah. Perfectly reasonable. Nothing wrong with that.

Yeah. So going through the wholesale distribution model, if you had to look back and you know, a year ago, this has only been going on, it sounds like for two maybe two years total, year and a half total, like really going on. Like, what have you learned? What would you tell yourself to do differently based on what you know now entering the retail space?

Chrisi Hammer (15:15.502)
Yeah, yeah.

Chrisi Hammer (15:23.33)
I think for retail it's super vital to have a sales organization that understands.

deeply about distribution. I think a lot of people that are in retail and frozen specifically think that they can get away with just entering these major distributors without having a deep understanding of of you know cutbacks and chargebacks and freight and logistics and how that's going to be set up. And so they just sign their life away and they don't actually understand the contract and what it is. And you can't really

Redline that. It's not I can go to Kahi and be like, hey, this isn't going to work for my business. They're like, we don't care. This is how we distribute food. You play with us or you don't play at all. And so I think what I would encourage founders and other people in that are coming up through the ranks would be to partner with a national sales team that's small enough that can give you the attention you need, but has enough experience to be able to speak on those things that you don't understand and be an

Advocate for you while you're trying to build those relationships. They're very challenging and it's not as user-friendly as maybe setting up your direct-to-consumer site. You know, it's very complex and everybody wants a piece of the pie. So you need to make sure that you understand all the points of distribution and who's getting paid and who's getting paid when. And I think a sales organization should be offering you that in addition to sales.

services. Like they need to have an understanding of that because odds are you're just like me and you have no idea what you're doing from a distribution standpoint. So that I think that's super vital.

Adam Callinan (17:13.99)
How did you find that organization?

Chrisi Hammer (17:16.952)
You know, I touched on this a little bit ago, but we had a really successful

Food show both at Fancy and Expo. And I'm not sure how familiar you are with them, but Fancy Foods and Expo are like the Super Bowl of food shows. you know, all the major retailers are there, the buyers are there, brokers are there, brokers are like sales organizations, and then investors. So we went and we're new and we were not in the CPG space, so we didn't understand that our booth was as impressive as it was, and the success that we had from it, and so we were

We were able to get the attention of one of these incredible national brokers that doesn't normally deal with you know, they don't just take anybody, they're very exclusive, they only have forty-five brands in their umbrella. But we were in a unique position from the success of the show to be able to

interview several of those candidates like who could be potentially a national brokerage and we landed on critical mass group and this is that's who they are. They're called CMG. And they they were super interested in us because of the show. And so I think

If you are looking for national distribution, it's really important that when you show up to these shows, you show up and you look different and you stand out and you're not just like another plug at plug and play. You have great product, great packaging, but that your booth is telling a story so that you can really get the attention of these people that know what they're doing. and like I said, making sure that they're small enough that they can give you the attention you need, but big enough that they have great relationships with these kind of legacy retailers.

Chrisi Hammer (19:02.163)
Because CPG is all about relationships, you know, making yourself accessible to them, interviewing several brokerage brokers before you make your decision with those two things in mind. Small enough that they can give you attention and big enough that they know the big boys.

Adam Callinan (19:22.574)
There's really similar philosophy and mindset around finding intellectual property attorneys. In that, like you want them to be big enough that they we they can wield a big stick and have a lot of resource, but small enough to where you get attention and it's not a thousand dollars.

Chrisi Hammer (19:28.655)
Absolutely.

Yes. Yes, yes, that's exactly right. Yes. Same philosophy.

Adam Callinan (19:43.834)
Looking again back in our crystal ball.

Have there been I have to assume that there are 'cause this is literally the way that we live in entrepreneurship. Have have there been experiences that you were you were looking at the business wondering whether or not it was gonna

Chrisi Hammer (20:01.619)
absolutely. I feel like I feel like it's like that every day, even now. Every single day. Yeah, no, every single day. I mean, because it's such a chicken and egg thing with retail. Like you know, if you're going to go through Unify and Kahee, which are these broadliner distribution points, and not just your targets and your krogers, which are super vital to your success too, but

Adam Callinan (20:05.07)
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That's kind of what I I would think. Yeah. It's like yeah.

Chrisi Hammer (20:27.715)
You can't just call Kahi and be like, Distribute my food. They my brand. They're like, No, you need a retailer. And then you go to the retailer and the retailer says, No, you need a you need a distributor. So there is

There is so much of you, and of course the retailer's not gonna take you on, and the distributor's not gonna take you on unless you can handle the capacity, and the co-man's not gonna take you on unless you have the distributor and the retailer. So there's so much of emerging CPG brands that have to do so much fake it until you make it. Like I will figure this shiz out. but I need you to first say yes before you're confident that you can actually do the thing that they're asking you to do.

You have to say, yeah, I can definitely service 600 stores. And you're like, I really, the reality is, I really have no idea how I'm gonna do that, but I'm going to work tirelessly to figure that out. So at every single point in my business, every single day, we're dealing with inflection points of like, my gosh, can we handle this? Do we have enough capital? Can we get more capital? Do we have the co can we get in line with the COPAC? Can we get the free?

Scheduled? Can we get the packaging in time? Can we get the new packaging in time? Can we get the samples out? Can we get into the cut-ins? Can we get to the, you know, non-category review times with the retailers? I I think it's a literally a balance every single day of us trying to figure out if we can keep up and and can this business make. I mean, for example, before I got on the phone with you, our co-man, we have huge POs that are due in

I think eight days. Our co-man just told us that the flow wrapper that we use to individually wrap our buns is not working. And we either need to get a new one, we need to spend $10,000 to get a technician in to fix it, or we're pretty much screwed.

Chrisi Hammer (22:31.401)
So that's like a huge issue that we have to solve just today within the last five minutes. And I'm sure there will be three other of those that hit at the same time, simultaneously getting new retailers placing POs in at it live, like at the same time. So it's like there's inflection points of

you know, production and then there's inflection points of capital and then there's inflection points of the retailers want you and and you need to perform. So it's literally every day we're going through issues. Can we are we gonna do this? Are we gonna survive? I don't know if it ever gets better. It's probably all the way till the very end of that signing the deal with the strategic finally purchase your company that you're like, can we do this? You know

Adam Callinan (23:10.382)
Yeah.

Adam Callinan (23:19.984)
Yeah, I mean I again I d I don't have experience in the frozen food world, but I can tell you that it doesn't. It it just changes. It's like w we had a similar conversation with Russell from Spot and Tang. It was this like epic dog food company that like went completely nuclear, hundreds of millions of dollars. And it's like you're it it's eating glass is kind of how I think of it. And Russell felt the same. And it's the glass doesn't it changes flavor over time, but it's still glass, like the c the texture changes a little bit.

Chrisi Hammer (23:25.445)
Yes. Right. It just changes.

Chrisi Hammer (23:37.049)
Nice. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Chrisi Hammer (23:44.963)
Yeah.

Adam Callinan (23:49.136)
But I can tell you the when it does change is at that point of acquisition and you get on this weird call with 12 attorneys in four different states and they all do this like old English version of they all have to say I in sequence, like that they commit to agree to this thing. And then you hang up the phone and it's done, and that's the only time it feels different.

Chrisi Hammer (23:49.198)
Yeah.

Chrisi Hammer (24:02.83)
Ai, ai.

Chrisi Hammer (24:07.738)
I that has to be the only time this feels different. I'm like, I I don't I can't comprehend a time in which this doesn't feel different. And it it's it's funny, like we were talking about imposter syndrome, like on another day I was talking about it and I'm like and they were asking, you know

Adam Callinan (24:21.786)
Huge thing. Yep.

Chrisi Hammer (24:25.678)
If I looked back on myself this time last year and I didn't even really understand distribution points or like how would I possibly be entertaining conversations with Target nationally

I I couldn't even fathom that to like where I am today. I think that last year I would have thought that Chrissy that had an understanding of a national retail target would be so much more confident than she is today, than I was last year. And it's like, no, I still feel like

I have really no idea what I'm doing. I'm learning more and more every single day. I'm relying on my community and experts and people I brought into my ecosystem. But me personally, I'm like, I I don't feel any different. Even with the awards of like you have national distribution, it's like I still feel like crap, are people gonna like my cinnamon rolls? At the end of the day, I'm asking myself the same question that I was this time last year without the distribution. So I think it's just

You know, you get better at hiring people that know what they're doing and can help you, you know, tackle the big

Things that you don't understand and the problems that you need help with, but you personally, I really don't know. And probably even when I go through an acquisition, I'm still gonna be like, gosh, this just started in my mom's kitchen in the nineteen seventies. You know, like it it still will always feel like, are people gonna like my buns? Really at the end of the day. Like you just always have this constant state of imposter syndrome. And I d I just don't know if it will ever feel less.

Adam Callinan (25:53.219)
Yeah.

Adam Callinan (26:02.79)
I mean, I I think a huge part of it is just the human experience. I mean, it's just part of being human. And when that call happens, like it's you get it's real uncomfortable. Cause you go from having all of that running in your head and your mind for years and years or a decade, and then it just goes off.

Chrisi Hammer (26:06.266)
Right. Right. Well and

Chrisi Hammer (26:14.532)
Yes. I can imagine. Yes. Yes. Yes. And that's devastating. And I'm like, I you know, I think about that often. Like that's gonna already I'm thinking about like what's my next thing because I know this even through all the issues, you know, like that I'm just talking about, the ten issues that I'm gonna have today.

I'm having the most fun I've ever had on this journey of like problem solving and creating a brand and like living in the eating different flavors of class. Like it's such a weird experience to be living in so much exhaustion and exhilaration at the exact same time. Like this kind of juxtaposition of both of these feelings that I I am so fearful of that day. And I think that gives me a sense of freedom. Like I'm not, it's not.

Just getting to the acquisition and then you know living on a beach somewhere. It's like, what can I contribute? Who have I become? What can I do in my next phase that will help others, you know, kind of discover the path I've already been on? And you're right, it is all about like the human journey and the adventure that it takes to become the person that gets to that acquisition and is freeing. Like I I don't know all the answers, and I

I think that does give me a sense of

weird confidence and that I don't know what I'm doing, and it's okay that I don't know what I'm doing because I know I'm gonna figure it out. and that's maybe the big takeaway from who I was last year to who I am now is I still don't have the answers and that's okay. I'm still seeing a lot of success and I'm becoming this person that really relies on being okay in the discomfort of it all and the eating different flavors of glass. It is really all about

Chrisi Hammer (28:11.33)
the human experience. You're absolutely right.

Adam Callinan (28:14.052)
It's so important that you don't know the answers. I mean, I know you're you're saying that kind of like kind of flippantly, and it and it I understand why, but like you're not supposed to. If you knew all the answers, that pigeonholes you into a track that completely precludes you from evolution, from learning, from education, from like the pain, which is an incredible teacher. Like in it, you know, it is like the the classic aphorism like the more you know, the more you the less you know.

Chrisi Hammer (28:16.946)
Yeah.

Chrisi Hammer (28:22.257)
No.

Chrisi Hammer (28:34.449)
It's incredible.

Chrisi Hammer (28:40.677)
Right. Yeah. The older we get, the dumber we are. Yeah, it's like when we were sixteen, we're like, my my parents don't know anything. Are we serious? Our parents know everything. Absolutely.

Adam Callinan (28:43.918)
Yeah. Yeah, that that's a much better version. I like that version more.

Adam Callinan (28:51.846)
Yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned in that talking about, I mean, quite literally getting more comfortable being uncomfortable, which is a huge part of where I spend time and I mean part of the reason I have this podcast. So what do you do in your life to deal with that? I mean, getting comfortable being uncomfortable comes from the experience, but but generally speaking, you know, how do you get away from it? Do you just run off into the mountains? What do you do?

Chrisi Hammer (29:00.455)
Yes.

Chrisi Hammer (29:15.196)
Right.

Chrisi Hammer (29:21.115)
You know, I I take some breaths. I like really don't react immediately because I know in that reaction and I've reacted immediately a number of times to know like I overreacted because I know in the end it's gonna be okay. And so I have the end in sight. You know, the thing happens, right? The catastrophic moment happens, for example.

We are in nationwide Winco. It's a huge retailer. They do major volume. We did five truckloads, you know, hundreds of thousands of buns went to Winco. They went on shelf and there was a misprint on the package. Already at retail.

And a year ago that would have I would have spiraled and been like it would have sucked up a week of my attention and I would have cried and I would have been devastated and want to drive my car into a truck. You know, like I I just would have really lived in like the pain of it. And now I know it will always be okay. So I take that initial moment.

And breathe, you know, like take five deep breaths, like okay. And I keep telling myself it's gonna be okay, it's gonna be okay, because I know through my human experience, it has been okay. So, okay, we've got this catastrophic thing. I'm gonna take a couple deep breaths, and then I'm going to immediately dive myself into the problem. Instead of like, I'm gonna go bury my head in the sand, the problem's still gonna be there. You bury your head in the sand, it's the the package misprint is still there. So the quicker you can get to

problem solve the quicker you can get on the other other side of it so I take a couple deep breaths I make a few phone calls and then I immediately go into problem solving mode and I find that that is actually the best thing you can do like immediately go into problem solve mode and then it becomes less about you and how this affects you personally and more about solving the problem which always makes you feel better like I'm I'm getting to the meat of it all

Chrisi Hammer (31:29.081)
and really fixing the issue and and that's really what's going to bring me peace is doing the actual action of the problem solving. Does that make sense?

Adam Callinan (31:40.708)
It does. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's again, so much of this is just like our human reptile brains, right? Our monkey brain just looking at the thing and wanting to th throw a banana at it. but being able to step away from it is is really important. Mentally being able to step away from it. And that's a practice, like as to your your story. I mean, that's obviously it's a thing that you learn. It's not generally inherent.

Chrisi Hammer (31:48.594)
Right.

Chrisi Hammer (31:53.021)
Right.

Chrisi Hammer (32:06.627)
Absolutely. And I think in your times when you're not actively problem solving, I

spend most of my free time, you know, driving or a time in my life where I maybe would have listened to books or really taken myself into a far-off place. I spend that time now where I'm not in active problems to educate myself to have that armor ready. You know, like I'll listen to your podcast about I was just listening to that podcast today where you had the golfer on. What was his name?

Adam Callinan (32:41.05)
Yeah, Taylor.

Chrisi Hammer (32:42.257)
Taylor and you know, it's it's about like

Listening to other people who have gone through things and maybe not your exact same experience, but the experience of entrepreneurship and like how they dealt with the setbacks and then how they got through those setbacks. So I spend my spare time listening to people who have succeeded through hardship. What did they learn? What did they take with them during that hardship to make them a better entrepreneur? And that has given me so much armor going into my day-to-day with problem solving. Like,

I know Taylor went through this thing, and so he made it out okay. I'm gonna make it out okay. You know, and and the more you can give yourself that sort of catalog of stories of entrepreneurs that have made it through the hardships, the more safe you feel. Like everyone goes through this. I don't know if you listen to how I built this, but it's a fantastic show.

And the guy who came up with Cho Chobonnie, I can't remember his name. He's so fantastic. That episode's fantastic, but you know, he's doing billions in sales. And he opens up a new warehouse and you know it's a million square feet, and out of that warehouse comes moldy.

moldy yogurt hundreds of millions of units of moldy yogurt like how could you possibly come back from that and he shares how he did and so you know if he could get through hundreds of millions of moldy

Chrisi Hammer (34:14.258)
We know Chobani's doing well today. He obviously made it through that. If he can get through that, then I can get through a misprint of 20,000 bags, right? Like, so it's really arming yourself with past experiences, both you personally and others who have gone through the hardships of entrepreneurship to really get you ready for that daily battlefield.

Adam Callinan (34:38.202)
Yeah, we always think about as entrepreneurs feeling like you're on an island. And you hear about that a lot, right? And it's and it's true. It's like right there in line with imposter syndrome. Everybody does it. The highlight reels that you see on Instagram and LinkedIn are not real. Those are fake. Those are marketing and spin, basically in psyops. So it does not encapsulate all these things that that we all have, but but I do think there is a lot of beauty in hearing the stories of other people, which is frankly why.

Chrisi Hammer (34:44.83)
Yes. Yes.

Chrisi Hammer (34:49.374)
Yeah.

Chrisi Hammer (34:58.62)
Really, yes.

Adam Callinan (35:08.058)
We do this. This is why the this podcast, why I wanted to do this was to talk not you know, the highlights are are great and they're they're they're fun. but it's all the good stuff is in in that kind of like pain suffer zone that we learned from.

Chrisi Hammer (35:08.884)
Yes.

Chrisi Hammer (35:21.904)
Absolutely. Like how did you how'd you get to this point? You know, it wasn't just rainbows and butterflies. Tell us the bad stuff.

Adam Callinan (35:30.17)
Yeah. This is super fun, Chrissy. How do you want people to find you, to find your brand? We'll post links and everything in the in the show notes.

Chrisi Hammer (35:38.684)
Yeah, of course. You can find me on LinkedIn, just Chrissy Hammer, and I do post, I give it the good, the bad, the ugly, all the things. You know, we we had a broken icing machine and we had to take it from the plant. My husband worked on it all Memorial Day for all Memorial Day weekend. So I posted all about how like it's not really glamorous and I'm really big believer in sharing the wins and and the setbacks. So you can find me there on LinkedIn sharing the journey of, you know, kind of building this brand.

Adam Callinan (35:46.02)
Awesome.

Chrisi Hammer (36:08.618)
And then you can find the brand on on Instagram, sunshinebuns.co. lots of we have lots of fun on there. And then nationally you'll be able to find us in the fall pretty much in 5,000 doors, like we had said. So you'll be able to really find us.

Pretty soon and then we're in Texas and the West over now. but like I said, we'll be nationwide in the fall. In the freezer section you'll find us. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Adam Callinan (36:38.778)
In the freezer section, important note. I was gonna ask that. That's important note. This is really cool. I congrats on having the success that you've had in a very short period of time. It may not feel short because you're in the middle of it, but it is in like if you zoom out, do your 30,000-foot view, it is really a fantastically short.

Chrisi Hammer (36:50.43)
Things out. Yes.

Chrisi Hammer (37:00.126)
Yeah.

Adam Callinan (37:01.178)
the distribution milestones and things that you've had. So congrats on that and thank you for being honest and open. That's where all the good stuff is. Yeah. Thanks, Chrissy.

Chrisi Hammer (37:08.125)
Yeah, of course. Thanks, Adam.