"The Climb" with Michael Fisher: Growing a Candy Brand 10x in 12 Months

Michael Fisher is the founder and CEO of Rotten, a sour gummy candy brand launched in 2023 that's a better-for-you product, but also with fun, nostalgic 90s kids-cartoon branding. This episode is part of "The Climb," our series featuring founders in the early stages of building their brands.


Expect to hear about:

– Candy-First Brand: Why he rejected looking like a “diet candy” and built a weird 90s cartoon universe around Dr. Rotten.

– Learning CPG from Scratch: Spending 2.5 years recipe testing, running focus groups, and launching a Kickstarter before selling a bag.

– TikTok to 6,000 Doors: Using DTC and social to validate demand, then scaling into ~6,000 retail stores.

– 1,000% YoY Growth Pains: What broke with rapid revenue growth, and how Michael resolved supply chain issues.

– From Solo to Team of 6: Shifting from doing everything himself to hiring operators and learning to lead.


Find Michael on:
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-fisher1/ 

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High Stakes Growth® takes you inside the boldest decisions behind today’s most exciting consumer brands. We bring you candid conversations with the founders and CMOs who built them—unpacking the high-stakes moments, tough calls, and game-changing strategies that made these brands what they are today. No fluff. No surface-level insights. Just real stories from the leaders who made it happen. Hosted by Forest Bronzan and Leah Lloyd, they bring a combined four decades of consumer brand expertise to these conversations.