The Startup CPG Podcast

In this Founder Feature, host Caitlin Bricker sits down with Darin Alpert, founder of Gheelish, a snack brand built around ghee, the clarified butter, as its star ingredient, for the story of how a cold email to Sprouts turned a kitchen popcorn recipe into a nationwide launch.


Darin co-created Find Me Gluten Free about 12 years ago, an app that now has roughly 3 million users, and spent 15 years selling enterprise software to companies like Caterpillar, IBM, T-Mobile, and Costco before building a CPG brand of his own. With severe gluten and lactose intolerances, he struggled to find snacks free of seed oils, and a single SKU of ghee popcorn, discovered while his wife was pregnant, sparked the idea of building a whole platform around ghee.


Caitlin and Darin dig into how Gheelish went from a kitchen to Sprouts nationwide in 2024, why second-time founders often focus on distribution before product, how ghee compares with tallow, what makes the brand’s air-popped popcorn lower in calories and fat than leading brands, and the sales-training science behind the cold outreach message that earned Darin a spot on the show.


Listen in as they discuss:

  • How his wife’s pregnancy and a single ghee popcorn SKU sparked the idea to build a snack platform around ghee
  • What ghee actually is, and why its butyric acid has earned a reputation for gut-friendly benefits
  • How Gheelish’s air-popped approach delivers about 30% fewer calories and nearly 60% less fat than leading popcorn brands
  • Why second-time founders tend to focus on distribution before product
  • How a cold email to the Sprouts forager team and hand-labeled Sharpie bags led to a nationwide launch
  • Growth from roughly $300K in 2024 to about $2M in wholesale sales in 2025, with no D2C or Amazon
  • The protein cookie launching at Sprouts nationwide in December, and why Darin wishes he had launched cookies first
  • How ghee and tallow compare, and why Darin calls ghee the “cousin” of the tallow movement
  • The science behind outbound messaging: lead with the lead, keep it short, and have a reason to exist
  • How Startup CPG connected Darin with Grassroots Marketing for in-store sampling at Sprouts


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Creators and Guests

Host
Caitlin Bricker
Managing Editor @ Startup CPG

What is The Startup CPG Podcast?

The top CPG podcast in the world, highlighting stories from founders, buyer spotlights, highly practical industry insights - all to give you a better chance at success.

Darin Alpert
When my wife was pregnant a couple years ago with our son, went through, like, the whole house and looked at, like, switching dryer sheets to wool, dryer balls, deodorant becoming organic underwear. Organic, like, just. You go down that whole rabbit hole of, like, everything in your house, in your kitchen, and we thought were eating healthy. And it's like, there's like, a lot of things where you're like, dang, this isn't what we want with the kid in the house. So we started looking all snacks from, like, there was one skew of ghee popcorn that lesser evil makes. And that was kind of a light bulb moment for me. I was like. And we had been eating it, and I was like, that's a light bulb moment that you could build this whole platform around ghee and make a snack right out of it.

00:45
Caitlin Bricker
Hey, everybody, this is Caitlin Bricker, Managing Editor at Startup CPG. We are back with another founder feature. Today I'm sitting down with Darin Alpert, founder of Gheelish, a snack brand built on ghee clarified butter as the star ingredient. Darin went from his kitchen to 4,000 stores in two years, launching nationwide at Sprouts in summer 2024. His air popped popcorn is 30% less calories and 60% less fat than leading brands. Darin's not new to the entrepreneurial game. He created Find Me gluten free with 3 million users and spent 15 years selling enterprise software before deciding to build a CPG brand around his own gluten and lactose intolerances. We're diving into why ghee is the perfect snack ingredient.

01:30
Caitlin Bricker
How a cold email to Sprouts became a nationwide launch, the science behind compelling outbound messaging, and why snacking on ghee and popcorn makes a lot more sense than bulletproof coffee. If you're looking to connect with buyers, investors, and industry experts in real time, you need to be in our community. Join our free Slack community with over 40,000 members. Get access to exclusive events and trade shows where you can meet those buyers and investors in real life. Tap into free resources and more. Text CPG to 833-605-7002. That's 833-605-7002 and we'll get you hooked up. As always, enjoy. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast. This is Caitlin and today I'm here with Darin Alpert, founder of Gheelish. Darin welcome to the show.

02:25
Darin Alpert
Thanks, Caitlin. Good to be here. Appreciate you having me.

02:27
Caitlin Bricker
This is a special episode, I gotta say, because I was doing the numbers in my head, I don't really do math much, so I'm just trying to pull numbers out of my head. I have probably done about 75 episodes at this point. You are maybe one of three founders that I've said yes to via an inbound request to be on the podcast. So before we get into all things Gheelish, I just have to read your message that you sent to me on LinkedIn.

02:57
Darin Alpert
Well, now you're gonna get a bunch. Just for the record.

02:59
Caitlin Bricker
Yeah, maybe if people are taking notes, I'll be game to say yes to them. This was your message to me. Hey, Caitlin. Would love to share the gala story with your audience. We went from my kitchen to 4,000 stores in two years, and it's been wild. To some people, that might seem plain. Jane. Super simple. That is my style. You weren't trying to sell me. You gave me a very solid talking point. I was intrigued and I didn't answer you.

03:27
Darin Alpert
True. That's true.

03:28
Caitlin Bricker
The first message you followed up in two weeks and said, hey, worth a chat. And yes, it was worth a chat because I liked your style. I like the confidence that you came with in that message. And it was worth a yes from me.

03:39
Darin Alpert
Sweet. Well, appreciate it. Appreciate it. We'll get into that. How? I. There's, like, science to what I wrote. We can talk about that if you ever want to get into that.

03:47
Caitlin Bricker
I would love to talk about that. But first, tell us what gheelish is.

03:52
Darin Alpert
Yeah. We are a snack brand that's got ghee at the focus. Kind of like cauliflower has cauliflower and bonza uses garbanzo beans. Like, we use ghee for our snacks. Popcorn chips and protein cookies. Coming.

04:02
Caitlin Bricker
The three bags that you sent to me for samples did not last very long in my household, so well done.

04:08
Darin Alpert
You threw them away or what happened?

04:12
Caitlin Bricker
No way. No way. They were delicious. We ran through them very quickly. Also, we'll say toddler approved, which is a very hard thing to do.

04:20
Darin Alpert
Yeah. So I've got a three and a half year old son. How old are your kid? Kids?

04:23
Caitlin Bricker
My daughter will be three in November.

04:25
Darin Alpert
Okay. Just for the record, I've been very hesitant to give him popcorn because I don't want to be like the Segway guy who ran off the cliff and died on a Segway. Like, I don't want my kid choking on our own popcorn. Just forewarning. They're just. There's, like choking, you know, Like, I don't want that for your daughter either.

04:40
Caitlin Bricker
We are very careful with the things that we give her just little bites here and there, but, like, we're not going to sit her in the corner with a bowl of popcorn.

04:47
Darin Alpert
But totally.

04:48
Caitlin Bricker
So far, so good.

04:49
Darin Alpert
That's good. Good to hear.

04:51
Caitlin Bricker
So tell me about your background. Where were you prior to Gheelish? I would assume that this has. You've got a hero arc here for being, like, the hero and ghee with ghee snacks. So tell me what your life looked like prior to Gheelish.

05:06
Darin Alpert
Yeah. So going back, like 12 years ago, a friend and I created what's now the biggest app for gluten free people to find restaurants and cafes. And it's basically yelp for gluten free. People felt, find me gluten free. It's got about 3 million people that use the app to go travel and find restaurants and that kind of thing. So I've got a gluten intolerance and a lactose intolerance, which is ghee. And this is a dad joke. We should clarify what ghee is, because ghee is clarified butter, which is butter without the milk. So it's been around for centuries. In India, they've obviously got a lot of cows, produce a lot of milk, produce a lot of butter. It's really hot. They had no way to store it. It was going bad.

05:41
Darin Alpert
So they figured out if you take the milk and water out, it becomes shelf stable. So that's how ghee got started back in the day.

05:46
Caitlin Bricker
Wow. If you don't mind me asking, how did you discover that you were gluten and lactose intolerant?

05:52
Darin Alpert
Well, the gluten thing I figured out at, like, I'm 40 now. At, like, 26. I ate a lot of $5 hot and ready pizzas in college and drank a lot of, like, crappy beer, which is cliche. And, you know, I would, like, go home on break and just feel gross, you know, like bloated and, like, I didn't know what brain fog was in the middle of brain fog. But, like, I remember my neighbor one day going, dude, like, you just don't seem like yourself. Like, when you left, like, my parents next to our neighborhood, I knew forever. And I was like, I don't know, maybe I should. I never thought about that. And then a couple years later got a gluten test and figured out I'm, like, severely allergic to gluten lactose nightshades. And I'm like, dang, this sucks. Yeah. So getting.

06:32
Darin Alpert
We can get into how our food system's all messed up, but that's a whole episode.

06:36
Caitlin Bricker
Yeah. I was going to say it might be an entirely different episode. We talk about that for a very long time with very many people.

06:43
Darin Alpert
Yeah, exactly. So, you know, having food intolerances and food allergies. I've got an entrepreneurial background, too. Like, in college, I would go buy stuff at, like, thrift stores and swap meets and flip it on ebay, kind of before, you know, people made that, like, a popular thing. And my dad ran his own business selling software. So I've had this entrepreneurial bug. And then the opportunity to go build a business around, like, your own problem, I think is a really awesome thing to do. And I think there's a lot of founders that have come on the show and done that. So I solved my own problem of, like, with the ghee thing being lactose intolerant, there really weren't a lot of snacks that weren't loaded with sunflower oil or canola oil or just seed oils in general.

07:19
Darin Alpert
And when my wife was pregnant a couple years ago with our son, went through, like, the whole house and looked at, like, switching dryer sheets to wool, dryer balls, deodorant, becoming organic underwear. Organic, like, just. You go down that whole rabbit hole of, like, everything in your house, in your kitchen, and we thought were even healthy. And it's like, there's, like, a lot of things where you're like, dang, like, this isn't what we want with a kid in the house. So we started looking at all of our snacks from. There was one skew of ghee popcorn that lesser evil makes, and that was kind of a light bulb moment for me. I was like, and we've been eating it.

07:49
Darin Alpert
And I was like, that's a light bulb moment that you could build this whole platform around ghee and make a snack right out of it.

07:53
Caitlin Bricker
Yes. Because typically I see ghee sold in a jar or ghee is baked into something, but rarely is it the star ingredient that leads a whole product line. I could be just totally ignorant, but I can't name another brand that I have seen that's doing that outside of it being an ingredient versus a product that you're eating, consuming, like a snack.

08:17
Darin Alpert
Yeah. And I think these. Like, I'm really friends with the former founder or the former CEO of 4th and Heart Max, and we have these conversations a lot because when he was running Fourth and Heart, like, we joked that the two of us were the. We were the shepherds of building brand awareness around ghee in America. We're the two biggest kind of ghee brands. If you will. And it looks weird on a shelf, right? Like it's yellow and it's. Is it butter? Is it not? It's solidified like coconut oil. But I think coconut oil's been around long enough to where people know it. Fourth and Heart was smart to make ghee butter sticks and put that in the refrigerator section next to normal butter.

08:50
Darin Alpert
But yeah, no one has really like, you know, we've been to Expo west the last couple of years and a bunch of other food shows and like we really haven't seen a brand with ghee at the Focus. And again, you take the cauliflower model, you take the bonza model, you take the truff model where they took an ingredient and made a platform out of it. That was our vision with Galish.

09:07
Caitlin Bricker
Well, I think you're doing a great thing here. Do you have any other products coming down the pipeline or are you just going to stick to popcorn or can you not talk about it?

09:15
Darin Alpert
Oh, we can, yeah, yeah. So we're launching our version of a protein cookie. It'll be 250 calories, 10 grams of protein in an individual cookie. That'll launch at Sprouts Nationwide in December. And then that will be our first push into doing D2C because we've never sold our popcorn on our website. So there's just shipping issues and it's expensive and the boxes are big. So when we launched the business, went from our kitchen to Sprouts Nationwide back in summer of 2024 and we've never sold less than a pallet to anybody. And we' never done any D2C or Amazon. It's all just been wholesale pallets. So yeah, I think that's helped us scale the business to where we've gotten to in a couple years.

09:54
Caitlin Bricker
Totally. What did it feel like when you first started landing those accounts for your business?

10:00
Darin Alpert
Yeah. So you know, being a second time founder, you hear this a lot. Like first time founders focus on product. Second time founders tend to focus on distribution before product. And that's. I don't know if you've heard that before.

10:12
Caitlin Bricker
I haven't heard it, but it's. My wheels are turning.

10:15
Darin Alpert
Yeah. Like, because if you think about it, you need distribution like product. You can go figure that out and iterate it. But the way we kind of launched the business was we had cold emailed the Sprouts foraging team fall of 2023. Around this time, my wife and I made the popcorn in our kitchen. We the night before our meeting, we flew out the next day, met With Sprouts. They said, hey, we want to bring this in nationwide. We literally brought them bags that my wife hand wrote on the bag. Like, we got those, like, unmarked silver bags and with like a postage sticker and wrote in Sharpie. And we had some like, loose mockups of what we thought it could look like. And I was like. They were like, yeah, we love this. Like, we want to bring this into the forger set.

10:50
Darin Alpert
So I was like, okay, this is amazing. So we had already talked to a couple co packers that we knew could do it. So, like, that was there, but we didn't want to go spend $50,000 on a production run and a 15,000 unit MOQ and like, it's just expensive to do that and be sitting on all this inventory. You don't know what you're going to do with it. So. So that was an amazing launch, right? Like, going from our kitchen to Sprout Station wide. Like, the first bag of Gil's popcorn was sold out of Sprouts in July of or about eight months after we met with the team.

11:17
Caitlin Bricker
Wow. And what has your growth looked like since 2024 when you got into sprouts?

11:22
Darin Alpert
Yeah, we did about 300 grand in 2024, which was basically a few months of being on shelves in the Forager set in Sprouts. And then last year, 2025 was our first full year of selling. We did about 2 million in sales, all wholesale. And then this year we'll do more than that. So, yeah, we've added more doors. Like, we've added the Erewhons, the Mom's Organics, the Thrive markets. We just got into Central Market in Texas. We're doing a guests with a few fresh time stores. We're in World Market that launched a couple months ago, so it's in a number of independent stores. Like I'll shout out Swamp Rabbit Cafe in Greenville, South Carolina, because that place moves like almost 20 to 30 bags of dealers popcorn a week.

12:02
Caitlin Bricker
Whoa.

12:02
Darin Alpert
Yeah, it's like this little cafe that's on like a bike trail down in Greenville and people stop in there and they like, grab snacks. So shout out to Swamp Rabbit Cafe.

12:10
Caitlin Bricker
Wow. You are the second founder that I've heard shout out Swamp Rabbit Cafe. The other one was Sheena Hamby of Max Squares that became her first retailer after we did a khe grocery run.

12:22
Darin Alpert
Awesome. Yeah, they've been incredible. And like, and a shout out to Startup CPG because I remember Bridget Aragon at Grassroots Marketing who does sampling at like, Sprouts and a bunch of other stores. I found her through a Startup CPG email when were first launching. I was like, we definitely need to get people to try this. Still don't know what ghee is. And that I think, helped us get off the innovation set and into the actual, like, inline popcorn set at Sprouts when we first launched. So shout out to Startup CPG for being a matchmaker there and Bridget for having an awesome team.

12:52
Caitlin Bricker
That's great. We love a shout out. We love when founders are finding resources, new friends, new partners. This is why we do what we do.

13:00
Darin Alpert
Yeah, it's an awesome resource. It's like, not only for, I think before you're launching, after you launch, all the events that you guys put on, like, it's just amazing. The network that I think a lot of times founders can get on an island and you get in your own head and you're like, I need to be around other people that understand what I'm doing, because not everybody will understand deductions and ois and like, all this stuff that you go through. And it's like, you need to have this peer group. So it's awesome that you guys exist and do that.

13:25
Caitlin Bricker
Thanks. You did just say something about how not a lot of people understand what ghee is or what it can do for them. And what you're saying is reminding me a lot of this tallow movement that's happening right now. Do you care if we dig into that? I don't want to pit the two ingredients against each other, but I'm saying seeing and feeling a lot of similarities, and I think it would be interesting to just kind of like, break that down from your perspective with ghee and what you're seeing happening in the industry right now.

13:53
Darin Alpert
Yeah. And tallow is simply, you know, rendered beef fat that comes from whenever a cow gets killed. And, like, they render the fat off of the meat and all that. Ghee is simply butter with the milk and the water that gets boiled out. So I would say they have different flavors. Ghee has that buttery flavor, which I think is very biasedly great on, like, salty snacks and in a cookie, because they're already there anyway. Beef tallow I think's got its use case for frying, like, with chips. I think that's like, some of the brands that have done a great job. What I will say about ghee is there's typically a higher smoke point.

14:25
Darin Alpert
So I use ghee a lot when I'm making steaks or, you know, if we're gonna, like, if we're gonna make a pizza, we'll put the bottom of a pan in the cast iron. We'll use ghee on the bottom of that, because when you heat it up at the very end to get it like that crispy feel, I think ghee is perfect for that. So if you're doing really high smoke point cooking, ghee to me is better. But if you want a less flavorful, more natural kind of taste, I think tallow's got its place there. So different use cases for both, in my opinion.

14:51
Caitlin Bricker
Yeah. I feel that I've never used ghee for my skin, but I do prefer the flavor and cooking with ghee over tallow, but I prefer tallow for my skin over using it in my food.

15:05
Darin Alpert
That makes sense. Yeah. And the other big thing that I love to talk about with ghee is butric acid, which is a fatty acid that fuels or reduces intestinal inflammation and aids digestion. So that's. So not only are you cutting down on the inflammation that dairy could provide with regular butter, you're actually getting a benefit from it because it's cutting down on inflammation and aiding digestion. So, like, to me, it's like this amazing ingredient that really hasn't gotten the love that it deserves. And I'm obviously very biased saying that, but, like, it really does have this great benefit to it that a lot of people don't know about.

15:36
Caitlin Bricker
No, I think you're definitely onto something. I mean, we see these resurgences of ingredients, and then we also see these ingredients come out of total left field that we've never seen before. And I do think that if ghee is going to be one of those next ingredients, you've clearly already set a very good foundation for yourself because you're everywhere. A sprouts is essentially. So it's a good gateway.

15:59
Darin Alpert
Yeah. Hopefully, like, time will tell with that and ghee. Ghee kind of had a moment, 2017-18ish. Maybe a little earlier with bulletproof coffee.

16:08
Caitlin Bricker
Yes. How could I forget?

16:10
Darin Alpert
Yeah, I. But I don't think that was the right, like, medium to introduce ghee. Like, putting that in your coffee. Like, it just. I don't think it tastes that good. Like, even MCT oil or a coconut oil in your coffee, I don't think that tastes that good either. So to me, that's like, a weird thing.

16:23
Caitlin Bricker
I personally like to see everything mixed together than, like, sitting on top. When I've done the MCT oil before, I never did the ghee in my coffee, but I've done the mct. And you kind of see it, like, pooling a little bit if you don't drink it too quickly.

16:37
Darin Alpert
Yeah. It's almost like when you get, like, you know, organic peanut butter and you see, like, the oil layer on top. Like, would you equate it to that?

16:43
Caitlin Bricker
Yeah, I would. It's definitely similar. I think what comes to mind for me, and this is probably not the best comparison, is when you see, like, water in whatever, your dirty dishes, sitting in the sink. That's what it reminds me of most.

16:59
Darin Alpert
Yeah. Oh, man, what an image. Yeah. See, but that's the problem is, like, that a lot of people got introduced to ghee from that.

17:05
Caitlin Bricker
Yes. It's a great point.

17:06
Darin Alpert
Like, the way I wanted to do it was like, everybody eats salty snacks, I would pretty much say, or some kind of, like, baked good, like a cookie, which we're coming out with. And so they've seen that before. And, like, we're presenting ghee in a format that they're already familiar with. And, like, our thesis is that hopefully will help get people to try it and then maybe go say, oh, maybe I will check out ghee in a jar. Like, I could use that for other stuff.

17:28
Caitlin Bricker
So, sorry if you've already mentioned this, but what do the health benefits look like? Are we seeing lower calorie count or are we seeing lower fat? What does it look like from a nutritionalist perspective to use ghee over typical butter?

17:41
Darin Alpert
Yeah. So. Well, specifically with our popcorn. That's actually an interesting topic that we talk about a lot. So we are about 30% less calories per serving and almost 60% less fat per serving than some of the leading popcorn brands out there that have been around for a long time. And I think a big piece of that. There's a couple pieces of that one. We air pop our stuff and spray it with ghee, and seasoning it runs through, like a car wash conveyor belt, if you will. Like, that's the easiest way to describe it. And if you kettle popcorn, you've got to use a ton of oil and the calories get bumped up because of the oil. So ghee isn't necessarily less calories or fat, but because it's more popcorn kernels per serving, we actually have a lower calorie count.

18:25
Darin Alpert
And we've got higher fiber count, like, almost 25% higher fiber than the leading popcorn brands out there per serving because of the way we make it, which is pretty incredible.

18:33
Caitlin Bricker
It is all making sense now. I remember when I first started looking at macros a couple years ago, when I was pregnant, I had gestational diabetes. So I really had to look at, like, protein and carbs and fiber and all these things that I really didn't pay much attention to before. I could not believe how many calories and how much fat there were in your typical oils, like an olive oil or nuts or seeds. I was like, oh, I thought I was, like, doing something really good for myself, but I guess not.

19:03
Darin Alpert
Yeah, I don't know, like, gets really tough when some of the marketing and all the dollars that come behind some of these big legacy brands that can pay for that stuff and they just, they make it seem like it's healthier or whatever, but it's like a lot of consumers aren't, unless you've got like a. I think the pregnancy thing. Same with my wife. Like, you've got a compelling event to really start digging into what you're doing because it's not just you anymore. Right. Like, it's your kid.

19:25
Caitlin Bricker
Right. And I think it just says a lot too, because when people are snacking, like, I don't want a single piece of popcorn. Like, I want a bowl. So the bigger the serving I can have without the guilt, the better. And that's something that you are certainly achieving.

19:40
Darin Alpert
With Gheelish, that was kind of the goal. Like my wife. And my favorite flavor is sweet cinnamon. Because if you look at most, like kettle popcorn, like, most kettle popcorns got like 30 to 50 grams of sugar per bag. Ours is 12. You know, it's like just enough. And it's 440 calories for the bag. So we'll split it watching a movie or watching Lioness, which we're obsessed with that show. And like, you eat like a bowl of it. And like you. I don't feel guilty eating a bowl of healthy popcorn because it's like, you know, mindlessly doing it. You're like, oh, it's not that many calories.

20:06
Caitlin Bricker
Yeah, it's fine. I don't think about it later. I don't have to. I don't have to pay for it later.

20:11
Darin Alpert
Yeah, exactly. So I think that's. That's one big theme with us is like, we haven't fried anything. Everything's been air popped and our cookies are obviously baked. But, like, I didn't necessarily want to get into the frying game because you're still frying something. Even things that are fried in tallow, it's still fried.

20:25
Caitlin Bricker
You know, I am curious from a consumer perspective and a retailer perspective, as you've been growing on this journey, what has the feedback been for you? Have you received any hesitation for customers buying your products or retailers bringing your products on shelf? And if so, can you give us a little glimpse into what that's looked like and how you've navigated it?

20:49
Darin Alpert
Yeah, well. So one thing that I've obviously learned, just like I didn't necessarily think about this when we did it, and in hindsight I probably would have launched our cookies first. But the popcorn set at most stores isn't that big. Like Sprouts has, I think five brands. Like, we've pitched to a big retailer a couple times in the last couple of years and haven't gotten accepted, unfortunately. And I think that's one of the big learnings is like the popcorn set isn't that big. So, like, you've got to really have a compelling story of why they would bring you in. And like, I would say that's been a bit of a challenge sometimes with some of the stores. But there's also people that are like, I don't like ghee. You know, like, it's got its own unique flavor and I don't necessarily like it. So.

21:25
Darin Alpert
But when we get people to like, when we go do demos, like I did one a couple of weeks ago, our local Sprouts here. I live in Raleigh, North Carolina, and I sold like 20 bags from like 3 o' clock in the afternoon to 5 o' clock that afternoon on a Monday, which wasn't that busy of a time. But it's like if you get people to try it and taste it and you tell the story of the calories and the fat and all that, they're like, oh, like that makes sense. So it's one of those things where I think you got to get people to try it for sure. Just like any snack or drink, you know.

21:51
Caitlin Bricker
Totally makes a lot of sense. All right, I need to know more about the science behind the message that you sent me because I am assuming there are brands listening right now who are like, okay, how do I get somebody to respond or actually listen to what I want to tell them? So please, you have the floor.

22:08
Darin Alpert
Yeah, well, I appreciate the fact that work. Like, that's. So between selling the gluten free app and launching G Lish, I had sold enterprise software for about 15 years. And that means like selling into the Caterpillars or IBM or T Mobile or Costco, like the biggest companies in the world, essentially. And those companies are massive. They've got 10, 15, sometimes 50, 100,000 employees. And it really convoluted on how to get into them. And you've got to really cut through the noise. So I went through a lot of sales training at some of the companies I worked at, and there's science to the outbound. It's like, keep it short, keep it super brief. Give a.

22:42
Darin Alpert
Like, if you think about, like, one of the best analogies I heard was like, if you read an article on, like, Business Insider or BuzzFeed or whatever, the hook has to really get you know, like, you can't bury the lead. You've got to start with the leads.

22:54
Caitlin Bricker
Why?

22:54
Darin Alpert
It's the lead. So that would be, I think, some of the science I learned. Like, when I messaged you, it was like, hey, went from my kitchen to, you know, 4,000 stores in two years. Like, I don't know how many messages you're getting like that, but I haven't heard it from a lot of other brands. So zero. Yeah. Like, that, to me, is, like, a reason to reach out, you know, so. And I know that you're always looking for compelling stories because you want to tell the best stories on the podcast. So it's like reverse engineer what you think your audience wants to hear and lead with. That is probably the advice.

23:19
Caitlin Bricker
There's totally. I agree with everything you're saying. And I think the confidence also comes through when you don't have to sell yourself too much. You're confident in what you're saying to me. You are confident in what you've done, and you don't need to convince me of what you're doing. You're just like, hey, I'm here. This is what I did, so let's have a conversation. Or at least that's how it came off to me.

23:40
Darin Alpert
That's the goal, right? That's the goal for sure. And I also think with, like, brands, there's got to be a reason to exist, because no one's going to be more confident about what you're doing than you. And if you're not confident what you're doing, like, you're never going to break through the noise. Like, you're not going to be able to go stand at a demo or a trade show booth or meet with a retailer. And, like, there's got to be a reason to exist. You know, like, when we launched this, there was not another brand that was focused on ghee in the snack aisle.

24:03
Caitlin Bricker
Totally. And you, I still, to this day, I think you are the standout one. I can't think of another brand that's standing out in the aisles when it comes to ghee. So props to you.

24:14
Darin Alpert
Thank you. Yeah, there's. I will shout out a couple other ones. Jamie's farm does granola. She only focuses on ghee. Gips makes potato chips that, you know, they're fried in ghee. Those are the only ones I've seen, though. But like at XO west last year, I did not see another brand. It was tallow everywhere, and I did not see another brand that was focused on ghee. I was like. I was like, either we're making a really big mistake or we're ahead of potentially how big this could be.

24:36
Caitlin Bricker
I am hoping and betting on the latter. I would love to see another ingredient come in and take a spotlight not from tallow, but share the spotlight with it and have its moment in the limelight. So, yeah, good for you.

24:52
Darin Alpert
I appreciate that, too. I hope so, too. I've made jokes that we're either like the cousin or the sibling of Tallow, you know?

24:57
Caitlin Bricker
Yes.

24:59
Darin Alpert
Come from the same place.

25:00
Caitlin Bricker
Before we wrap up, I have to just add in a little bit about that message that you sent me too. From my prior experience worked in the cannabis industry prior to joining Startup CPG, it was corporate cannabis.

25:14
Darin Alpert
I know that was the name of the brand.

25:16
Caitlin Bricker
Oh.

25:17
Darin Alpert
I was like, I don't know. That's interesting.

25:18
Caitlin Bricker
Corporate cannabis in general. I have two things that I want to say. One was I spent a ton of time in HubSpot and the CRM. I did a bunch of certifications with them, and one thing that always stuck out to me had to do with characters in a subject line. Word count in the email body.

25:37
Darin Alpert
Yep.

25:37
Caitlin Bricker
This will stick with me. I don't know if it's changed since, but they always said don't go beyond 40 characters in a subject line and stick to the preview text to 40 characters because if it gets cut off, they're not seeing it.

25:51
Darin Alpert
Yeah.

25:51
Caitlin Bricker
And in the body of the email, 150 words or less and use bullet points whenever possible. And that has, like, always stuck with me and I will not veer away from that.

26:01
Darin Alpert
Agreed.

26:02
Caitlin Bricker
Another thing that I learned, I was at a cannabis, I think it was called, like, cannabis Access Media. Ton of people from media. And totally relevant to CPG because cannabis products are CPG too. There was a woman from Cheddar. I forget her name, unfortunately, but she, at the time, Twitter was a thing. And she said, if you're going to pitch to me with the number of characters that fit in a tweet. And if you can't do that, don't Pitch to me.

26:28
Darin Alpert
Yes. Totally agree.

26:30
Caitlin Bricker
Spot on.

26:30
Darin Alpert
Yeah. That's our attention spans now, I think.

26:33
Caitlin Bricker
Exactly.

26:33
Darin Alpert
And I think there is science to that, too, because, I mean, how often do you read an email on your phone and you maybe, like, keep it unread and maybe go answer it on your desktop or you just respond on your phone.

26:43
Caitlin Bricker
Right. And if I see an email come through or a LinkedIn post or whatever it is and there's no bullet points and it's not broken down, my eyes are immediately glazing over, unfortunately. And I am just like, I don't know if I have the time to read this because you didn't put the time in to break it down for me to make it look digestible.

27:06
Darin Alpert
But anyway, we should follow up in a month. I'll set a reminder right now and be like, caitlin, how many people have reached out to you in the way that you want to be reached out to? And, like, did that number of three double at least?

27:16
Caitlin Bricker
You know, I bet it will. And you know what? I welcome it. I don't totally shut off inbound requests, but it's not. I prefer to meet people in person, and I prefer to taste a product, experience a product, recognize a trend before it starts happening, that sort of thing. Like, we get a rush as podcast hosts, as editors, as retail buyers identifying these things before they, like, really hit. And this is something that I feel like I'm seeing within you and with ghee.

27:46
Darin Alpert
So fingers crossed.

27:47
Caitlin Bricker
Yes to your message and yes to what you're doing in the Star Ingredient. I do feel like this is something that's going to take off.

27:54
Darin Alpert
Appreciate that. Yeah, I hope so, too. We're betting on it. Thanks for being a supporter.

27:58
Caitlin Bricker
Of course. I'm happy to. All right, let's get Gheelish on more people's radar. Where can everybody find you online? What's your website? What's your social handles?

28:06
Darin Alpert
Yep, it's Gheelish.com g h e l I s h.com and then at Gheelish on Instagram and TikTok.

28:13
Caitlin Bricker
Perfect. Darin, this has been so fun. I am so excited for you.

28:18
Darin Alpert
Thanks.

28:18
Caitlin Bricker
I would love to get that reminder from you and that check in about how many messages I've received. But I am really excited to see where you're at in one, two years and where the industry is moving as far as ingredients go. And I hope to see guy in the spotlight.

28:31
Darin Alpert
Me too. I am setting up the reminder right now.

28:34
Caitlin Bricker
I love it.

28:35
Darin Alpert
Well, thank you and look forward to meeting you at probably the next event. Are you guys going to KHI the Winner show or we do it all. Yeah, you do it all. Okay. That's San Diego next week. I'll be there for that if you're there.

28:46
Caitlin Bricker
I won't be there. I'll be in, I think LA next week or maybe two weeks. But we'll see each other in person. I have no doubt about that.

28:53
Darin Alpert
Cool.

28:54
Caitlin Bricker
Thank you. I'll see you later. Bye. CPG BFFs we've now arrived together at the end of another episode of the Startup CPG Podcast. As you may know, we're not just the top globally ranked Startup CPG Podcast. We're a community of tens of thousands of CPG founders and experts. And you should join us. If you haven't already. Head to startupcpg.com to sign up. You'll get an invite to our Slack community, hear about events near you, and get access to opportunities that connect you with buyers, investors and other brands. It's free. So what are you waiting for? I'll see you in Slack and in real life. Thanks for listening.