High Stakes Growth

Ryan Rouse is a co-founder of Factor (a ready-to-eat meal delivery brand sold in 2020), and has also served in executive roles at Serenity Kids and Highkey. Today, he's President at MALK Organics, a plant-based milk brand leading the dairy-alternative space.


Expect to hear about:

– Leaving “Safety”: Why Ryan walked away from a lucrative finance career after the 2008 financial crisis reshaped how he viewed risk and ownership.

– Building Factor: Co-founding Factor, bootstrapping through the early years, and how him and his partner grew the business despite capital pressure.

– A Hard Tradeoff: Why Ryan sold his equity in Factor early to support his family, and how he made peace with that decision after the brand sold for $277M three years later.

– Finding His Edge: How Ryan realized his strength isn’t in zero-to-one startups, but in scaling fast-growth brands in the $40M-$200M stage.

– The MALK Journey: Why scaling MALK from $40M to $100M has been one of the most rewarding opportunities of Ryan's career.


Find Ryan on:
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanrouse/
Twitter/X – https://x.com/MaalkMan

What is High Stakes Growth?

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.