Caryn Wasser has spent nearly seven years building Little Spoon into the largest direct-to-consumer kids' food brand in the U.S. β scaling from a two-person startup to $150M+ in net revenue across 11 product categories, and recently engineering what Target called its largest food and beverage launch of all time: 23 products across six aisles in 1,800+ stores. Named a Breakout Brand Leader by Ad Age in 2023, she's built brand-led growth without legacy media budgets β using community, collaborations, and consumer truth as her core growth infrastructure.
π§ Brand-Led Growth Architecture β Framework for making brand a core revenue driver, not a marketing halo
π DTC-to-Retail Brand Transition β Approach to maintaining brand intimacy and identity when moving from controlled e-commerce to national retail shelves
π€ Community as Growth Infrastructure β Process for building two-way customer relationships that compound as a business asset over time
βοΈ High-Impact Campaign Construction β Method for building creative briefs and influencer strategies that generate outsized ROI without legacy media budgets
π Cross-Functional Insight Compounding β Framework for eliminating organizational silos so community signals, paid performance, and creative teams reinforce each other
π― Brand Partnership Evaluation β Strategy for choosing collaborations that drive measurable acquisition and attachment, not just awareness
Whether you're building brand from scratch at an early-stage startup or navigating the DTC-to-retail transition, Caryn's frameworks will help you make brand the engine that drives real, sustainable business growth.
Perfect for: DTC founders transitioning to retail, consumer brand operators, brand and marketing leaders, challenger brand builders
Guest: Caryn Wasser β Chief Brand Officer, Little Spoon Host: Samantha Rose β Managing Partner, Hologram Capital & Founder, Endless Commerce
This episode was recorded live and is part of our series on operational frameworks that drive real business results. Subscribe so you never miss an episode.
What is Commerce is Chaos?
Look, we've all heard the polished founder storyβthe perfect pitch, the seamless scale, the overnight success. But what about the time you oversold by 100K units? Or when your 'seamless' integration crashed right before Black Friday?
Host Samantha Rose has been thereβfrom founding her first consumer business, GIR, managing fulfillment and industrial design for your favorite brands, or acquiring distressed brands on her own.
Welcome to Commerce is Chaos, the podcast for founders who knows that building a real business is beautifully, chaotically messy.