The Startup CPG Podcast


In this Founder + Funder episode, host Hannah Dittman sits down with Lindsay Leopold, Founder and CEO of Joy Supply, and Brandon Alster, Founder and Managing Partner of Sling Ventures, to unpack how the two met at a Startup CPG Founders & Funders Roadshow event and went on to close an oversubscribed pre-seed round.


Lindsay comes from a culinary background that includes pastry at one of Tom Colicchio’s restaurants, the Martha Stewart Kitchen as a recipe tester and food editor, and product development for Martha Stewart, Home Chef, and Sakara. Joy Supply brings back a crisp oat cookie from her great-grandfather’s family bakery, which he opened in Illinois after emigrating from Sweden in 1908. Brandon’s firm, Sling Ventures, invests in active lifestyle, “food is health,” and offline experience businesses, and Joy Supply is its first investment in the cookie aisle.


Hannah, Lindsay, and Brandon dig into what made Joy Supply stand out, how a five-minute roadshow meeting turned into months of relationship-building, what Brandon looks for in diligence, and the fundraising lessons both of them would pass on, from embracing rejection to knowing your investor’s thesis. They also tackle a Slack community case study on what to have ready in a data room.


Listen in as they discuss:
  • How Lindsay and Brandon met at a Startup CPG Founders & Funders Roadshow, with cookies in hand
  • Why Brandon looks for the right founder and a category that needs innovation
  • Why Joy Supply leads with “we’re delicious” before “we’re healthy”
  • Why the cookie aisle can feel crowded yet stale, and what that means for new brands
  • How Lindsay funded the first year of R&D and packaging before raising her pre-seed
  • How a five-minute meeting grew into a coffee, a steady stream of updates, and a close in August
  • How early retailer enthusiasm and consistent updates built Brandon’s conviction
  • Why fundraising is “a match, not a prize,” and why researching investors matters
  • Why Brandon says to embrace rejection and build supporters through regular investor updates
  • What to have ready in a data room, from a monthly P&L to retailer pipeline and unit economics


Brands and names mentioned in this episode:

Hiring: Lindsay is looking for a content creator or brand marketer in the New York area to work directly with her on activations and content. Sling Ventures is also always looking to meet talented people in social media, operations, sales, and marketing across its portfolio.

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Creators and Guests

Host
Hannah Dittman
Operations and Finance Correspondent at 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.

Lindsay Leopold
It's so important to go into these meetings, like knowing who you're talking to and the things that they're going to care about and remembering that it's a match, not a prize. Because I've had obviously dozens of conversations at this point. And when I talk to someone who gets it, I'm just like, it clicks. And I'm like, this is someone I want to be with. Whereas, you know, there's plenty of people that might invest in different categories or really value other things or might not appreciate the better for you food world. So it's really important to like focus on the people that you know are going to be more of that match.

00:38
Brandon Alster
Try to get more and more comfortable with building relationships, talking to people, telling your story for the thousandth or ten thousandth time, and get people into your monthly or your quarterly updates so they could follow along. That's like a really important skill that doesn't necessarily come easily for some people, or maybe it's easier for some more than others. But it's really important if your goal is to build a really big business. Because no one achieves success in this world without supporters and without a village. And so you're going to need to be able to handle or deal with failure and build supporters along the way in order to do that.

01:18
Hannah Dittman
Hey everybody, I'm Hannah Dittman, Operations and Finance, host of the Startup CPG podcast and today I'm joined by Brandon Alster from Sling Ventures and Lindsay Leopold, founder of Joy Supply for a founder and funder episode. Sling Ventures is an early stage investment firm backing the next generation of category defining consumer businesses. Brandon brings deep experience investing in emerging consumer brands, including early investments in companies like Jessie and Ben's and Saws. Joy Supply is bringing Joy back to the cookie aisle with delicious nostalgic cookies made from real responsibly sourced ingredients. Inspired by a family bakery recipe dating back to the early 1900s, Lindsay set out to create a better cookie without compromising on taste.

02:03
Hannah Dittman
Since launching Joy's Joy, Joply has quickly gained retail traction, consumer love and closed an oversubscribed pre seed round led by Sling Ventures after meeting the firm at a Startup CPG founders and funders roadshow. In this episode we dive into the founder investor relationship and unpack what made Joy Supply stand out to Brandon. We get into fundraising, what investors look for in the diligence process and building a differentiated product in a crowded category. We also explore lessons around resilience, fundraising preparation and investor and founder partnerships. If you're building a CPG brand Preparing to raise capital or looking to understand how early stage investors identify the next breakout consumer brands. This episode is packed with actionable insight and definitely go grab yourself some Joy Supply cookies and give them a try. They are so good. Enjoy. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast.

03:02
Hannah Dittman
This is Hannah and today I am so excited to be here for another founder and funder episode with Brandon Alster of Sling Ventures and Lindsay Leopold of Joy Supply. This is a particularly exciting episode because Brandon and Lindsay met through Startup CPG event. Brandon and Lindsey, welcome to the show.

03:20
Lindsay Leopold
Thank you. It's awesome to be here.

03:22
Hannah Dittman
We're so excited to have both you here and both you here in the same room. It's just a testament to how close you guys are already. I know it's a relatively new investment, but super excited to be digging in with both of you. I'd love to kick off with a brief background of both of your individual paths that led you to where you are today.

03:41
Brandon Alster
Awesome. It is such a pleasure to be here with you, Hannah. And with you of course, Lindsey, obviously. I am Brandon Alster, the founder and managing partner of Sling Ventures. We invest in businesses that are innovating within the world that we define as active lifestyle, food is health and offline experiences. Naturally, we end up spending a lot of time in the food and beverage world. We were notably the first investor in Jesse and Ben's here and obviously excited to be the first investor in Joy Supply. We invest out of our fund one right now. Prior to starting Sling Ventures, I was responsible for running venture capital investing on behalf of the DJ and musician Kygo out of his holding company Palmtree Crew.

04:21
Hannah Dittman
Super exciting. I know of Palmtree Crew. A lot of early exposure and experience you have, Brandon. And what got you into the consumer world in general? What made you want to gravitate towards this path?

04:32
Brandon Alster
Yeah, I was spending a lot of time in this space prior to joining Palm Tree Crew when they were founded, right around the time of the pandemic or thereafter. Started my career as an investment banker, spent time in the consumer world there and then ultimately went to the Startup side, spending time in the four wall health and wellness space before ultimately joining Palm Tree. Sounds like you're familiar with the platform that Palmtree has, but essentially they're running a holding company platform with large live events business, a hospitality arm and an investment arm. And so I was very fortunate to spend a bunch of time there investing in companies like Poppy Soda and Fly by Jing and Saws and a number of others. And weren't exclusively focused on the CPG world, but that was certainly where over time my heart definitely gravitated towards.

05:17
Brandon Alster
And so there are a handful of the deals like the ones I mentioned that ultimately informed a lot of thesis that we have here at Sling Ventures. And yeah, that sort of brings us today where two and a half years into our journey at Sling, nine portfolio companies and really excited to be partnered with joysply as of earlier this summer.

05:36
Hannah Dittman
Thank you so much. So exciting. And you've seen a lot of cool things in your career thus far and I'm sure much more ahead as well. Lindsay, I'd love to dive into your background and the path that led you to Joy Supply and where you're at today.

05:49
Lindsay Leopold
Yeah, so I come from a culinary background. I fell in love with the food scene when I moved to New York after college. I had a brief stint in performance channel marketing, but just had this like nagging idea that I had to go to culinary school and I had to work with food somehow. So I went to culinary school in the city, started working in restaurants, worked at one of Tom Colicchio's spots in pastry that led me to a position on the team at the Martha Stewart Kitchen. So I was kind of like some of the final years at the print magazine as a recipe tester and food editor. And then as prank media started to fade away and things are going digital, it wasn't the world that I was like gravitating towards anymore.

06:24
Lindsay Leopold
So I shifted over into product development and started developing for Martha Stewart for a couple of years, developed dozens of SKUs for her that were anything edible with her name on it. And then I also have some experience in meal kits with Home chef and organic meal delivery with Sakara. So that was much more like health and wellness focused, very high nutrition standards. So I have developed tons and tons of products for other people at this point and then decided it was finally time to try out my own thing. And I have had this idea for a long time to bring this cookie to life. This recipe comes from my great grandpa who came from Sweden in 1908, set up shop with his brother and opened Strand Brothers Bakery in illinois.

07:02
Lindsay Leopold
And my 96 year old grandma sent me the index card for these cookies which said crisp oak cookies. And granted they were made with shortening because they thought that was like a clean fat at the time. So I had to kind of like update some of those things to more modern ingredient standards. But I brought that cookie to life. I started working on this last April and then we launched May 2026. So we're like just shy of five months in market.

07:26
Hannah Dittman
How exciting. And what a cool background to come into your own entrepreneurial path with clearly a deep passion and resonance for the product which is really exciting. And I always think it's fun when formulators are people who like just really know the ins and outs of the nitty gritty details about products. Get involved on in a bigger scale in a bigger way because you know that stuff is going to taste good and if you guys haven't tried Joy Supply, you definitely should. It's so yummy. Huge fans, all of us here at Startup CPG and really excited to be here with you today. The woman, the myth and the legend behind the amazing recipe.

08:05
Hannah Dittman
I'd love to also understand kind of the context of your guys relationship, how you came together, what the process was like up until the point that you all met each other.

08:14
Lindsay Leopold
So I don't know what it looks like on your side but from the founder side I uploaded my one pager for the founders and funders event which was this spring. I was so early, I had my first manufacturing run scheduled for the next day and I said like why not? You know, I knock on every door, I don't turn down any opportunities. So I was like I am just going to submit this and see what happens. And I did get a handful of conversations. One of those was with Brandon. I brought cookie samples with me because this is one of those products that you can talk about until you're blue in the face but if you don't taste it like you're never gonna really appreciate how delicious it is.

08:48
Lindsay Leopold
And so I don't wanna like call you out but I think you had three or four cookies in our five minute meeting and we just really clicked from the get go. Like he's great with consumer and hearing that he had invested early in Jesse and Ben's and saws meant a lot to me because these are categories that are, you know, pretty commoditized. There's a lot of competition. People tell me all the time how competitive the cookie aisle is but they've both really made a dent in their categories by creating great products with simple ingredients and kind of this back to basics with the twist of something that is slightly better for you and using real ingredients and just being a consumer brand that people want to see today. So that was what it looked like on my side.

09:24
Brandon Alster
Yeah, I mean you guys put on an amazing event. I think that was in April, right? April of this past year. And you know, as an early stage investors in the consumer space. I believe in meeting lots of founders and willing to being willing to be helpful and an ecosystem participant even if there isn't an opportunity to invest on day one with folks. We typically stay in touch with founders, you know, over the course of a long time. And so I wasn't really expecting to meet a founder that I would be ready to back at that event. I really was just there to meet folks and be part of the ecosystem here in New York. And so ultimately met Lindsey, as she mentioned at least four or five cookies.

10:00
Brandon Alster
I think she's being kind and as you could tell, there's a pattern of investments I make that certainly do not help my waistline. But yeah, no, immediately hit it off. As she said, you try the cookie and you could tell how delicious it is. And something that we spent a lot of time thinking about here at Sling as investors is, you know, founder and category. Right. You know Lindsay's background. She mentioned she was at Martha Stewart and Sakara Life and Home Chef and.

10:24
Brandon Alster
And what she didn't mention that I had to uncover during my due diligence actually is that she has a YouTube channel with over a million views of really highly produced content of baking different recipes in the kitchen and anyway, could talk forever about how great of a founder profile Lindsey has and tell you about what excited us around the category. I think there's a lot of founders out there that are making really great products, but in categories that may not be in need of innovation per se. And there's a bunch of things that we are really excited about with Joy Supply and bringing innovation to the cookies app.

10:57
Hannah Dittman
You know, those cookies are good if someone was already interested without even knowing the marketing advantage that you had. Lindsey. Yeah, we love our Roadshow series. It's a great way for early brands like yours was Lindsay to get their foot in the door when maybe they're not of the scale for some of the later more big or fulsome events like founders and funders, or maybe they're just trying to like test it out and see what it's like and build relationships themselves. It's kind of like an easy entry point and I love that the one pager stood out and you guys hit it off. I would love to dig into that a little bit more and really understand, you know, what was the initial pitch like or what was the kind of meat of the one pager?

11:38
Hannah Dittman
What was the company's story and narrative and how were you positioning the brand and what was resonating in that positioning for you, Brandon.

11:47
Brandon Alster
Yeah, I. So I didn't look at this one pager, truthfully. I don't really. I don't. And when I talk to. When I talk to founders, I don't really like to look at the deck either. When I'm talking to them, I like to look at it on my own time. And maybe at one point, you know, I did look at the one pager, but not in person. When I was with Lindsay, I think, you know, is obviously focused on eating the cookies, but also talking to her and learning her story and learning about the opportunity in the set.

12:11
Brandon Alster
And I think when you look at cookies, right, I grew up in the late 90s, early 2000s, and, you know, grew up on Oreos and Chips Ahoy and Famous Amos, and you have those delicious but not really great ingredient profile and macro type of cookies one end of the spectrum, and on the other end, you have a group of brands that are really health focused. And I think, you know, when you look at those other cookies on the shelf, the brand conveys a message that starts with, but we're healthy, right? As opposed to, like, but we're delicious. And I think where Joy Supply really slots into that set is that it leads with we're delicious, and of course we're healthy, right? Being clean ingredient is table stakes, I think, in today's world. And I guess I should caveat, like, when I say healthy, right?

12:59
Brandon Alster
Like, you can't make a delicious cookie without butter and without sugar. And we talk about Jesse and Ben's, too, right? We always say at the end of the day, they're French fries. You know, we're not trying to be a vegetable here, but we think that a lot of people, and myself included, really care about the ingredients that they're putting into their body. Being able to recognize the words on the back of the label, not to mention the do good feature of, you know, the fact that a lot of the ingredients in Joyce Blood cookies are regenerative. And so that's really what excited us around the category.

13:29
Brandon Alster
I think when you look at a brand like Tate's, which obviously went on to achieve really great success, they're a great example of company that kind of slotted that or slotted into the category of being positioned as cleaner than Oreo and than Oreos and Chips Ahoy, but they've since been acquired by Mondelez. And, you know, there's some qualms, I guess, if you will, that we might have with the current product today. And I think that presents a really awesome opportunity for Joy Supply to create an amazing product in the set.

13:59
Lindsay Leopold
Yeah, it's funny because I often hear how crowded the shelf is in cookies but then I'll also follow up and be like, well, when was the last time you walked down that aisle and when was the last time you bought.

14:08
Hannah Dittman
Any of the cookies?

14:08
Lindsay Leopold
Because I think a lot of people have that assumption. But the conversations I'm having with buyers is unanimous that everyone feels the aisle is stale and a lot of innovation has over indexed in vegan and gluten free and special diets. So I asked people to name like, but what's the last just like great homemade style cookie that entered the market and usually people can't answer that question. So I think there's a perception of how crowded the categories because yes, there's a lot of brands doing it, but you know, we're doing it in a very different way. And the cookie itself is actually unique to anything that's on the shelf. It's something that's really popular in Scandinavia and a little bit in the uk but this like crisp o cookie isn't actually something that we have right now.

14:45
Lindsay Leopold
So it's been kind of like a unique combination of a cookie that just happened, you know, is really delicious and also new.

14:52
Hannah Dittman
Yeah, it has a little cultural relevance, some exciting kind of global reason to try or buy and delicious taste to stick with and very I think, easy to wrap your head around as even if you are not familiar with the origins necessarily of where it comes from. And I think you're totally right, Lindsay. Crowded doesn't mean someone's winning it. Just because there's options there doesn't mean there's winners there. And I think that's what founders have to do. Right. Is see the opportunity that other people aren't seeing because they really understand their consumer and who they're trying to speak with and who they're trying to supply joy to and make sure that it's resonating with them and that there's a reason to. So I love your take and your understanding of the category.

15:34
Hannah Dittman
And Brandon, to your point on kind of the shelf stake of healthy but keeping the indulgence, I think it's like the idea of comfortable indulgence. It's, you're going to purchase these things because you want the treat. You are trying to treat yourself but you want to be comfortable doing so. Not like feeling guilty about the treat because there's all this extra added layer of baggage on the ingredient list or whatever it might be. So I think having the Comfort that you're making a good, indulgent choice. It makes that experience a little bit less guilty and a little bit more joyful.

16:09
Brandon Alster
Totally. So, I mean, something we talk a lot about and think a lot about is, you know, the modern mom shopper or parent shopper that buys not just for themselves, but the four or five people in their household. And I think that folks my age or, you know, millennials and now Gen Z parents, they don't want to deprive their kids of the delicious foods that they grew up on themselves. They just want to feel a little less guilty giving it to them. And so brands like Joy Supply, brands like Jesse and Benz, brands like Sauce, allow, you know, these parents to feel a little bit better about giving their kids a cookie.

16:41
Hannah Dittman
I love that thesis. I'd love to kind of circle back and double click a little bit more on the diligence process and all of the different layers that you guys dug into together. But first, I'd love to kind of rewind a little bit more to Lindsay, your journey and your kind of goal with finding an investment partner. Obviously, this was a newer brand and you were kind of just stepping out to pursue this kind of fundraising process. What was the goal with finding an investment partner? What milestones were you working through at the time and kind of what was the impetus to get involved in this leg of the race?

17:15
Lindsay Leopold
Yeah, so when I first set out to do this April 2025, I always knew that I was gonna take on outside money. I think having this is my first time as a founder, but I'm more of an industry veteran. So having worked in the food industry for a long time, I was like, this is a chance to take a big swing and I don't wanna just do this on the side. I don't want this to be like my after work. Like, I really wanna, like, devote everything to this because I think there's a lot here. And so I raised, like, right off the bat, I raised around 200 from angels, friends and family to get things off the ground.

17:46
Lindsay Leopold
And that really got me, like, through the first year of R and D and product development and creating, packaging and branding, up until the point that I had, like, the physical box in my hand. And were about to go into this first production run. And so it was really good timing that founders and funders popped up, because that was like, around the time I was starting to think, like, okay, we're about to enter the market. I'm going to need more cash to, like, market these cookies because we have kind of like a viable product. Now I have a lot of great feedback from people that have been sampling these along the way.

18:16
Lindsay Leopold
And it's a lot easier to raise money, especially in food, when you have the real product to send to people, rather than just showing a deck and being like, trust me, it tastes great. So that was when I reopened this round. And from there I just, you know, I kind of had like a number in mind of where I thought we needed to get and what valuation would feel fair and compelling for like someone to get in this early. And that was, we took it from there.

18:36
Hannah Dittman
Super helpful. And what was the process like once you guys, you met, you had a roadshow, one one meeting. What happened after all of that? And what was the process like from that initial meeting all the way through to close and building out the rest of the round? Was this your only investment partner? Did you need to get others involved as well? And how did that all come to be?

18:58
Lindsay Leopold
So, I mean, for anyone that's done the roadshow, or maybe not, it's a really fast. It's like speed dating. And so we met for five minutes. We're both in New York, so we set up time to get coffee after the fact. And went way over the time we allocated because we just really clicked on like a lot of levels around what we believe about the future of food. And yeah, so we kept the conversation going. And I think this is one of the things that I would encourage founders to think about is that this isn't like a one and done conversation. You're going to seal the deal in one call, one meeting.

19:26
Lindsay Leopold
And even, you know, you meet a lot of investment partners along the way that like, are not going to be ready for or not going to be the right fit for you at your stage. Like, I've met people that say, you know, we write 10 to $15 million checks and like, let's keep in touch. And it's really important to nurture those relationships like throughout the years as you continue to grow and bring them along the journey. And so, yeah, I feel like we just kept trading more and more information. It was like, because it was so coincidental around the timing, I was like starting to get sales traction. And so when I would get like an early win, I would like send it along and say, hey, here's another proof point. Here's this, here's our sales pipeline.

19:59
Lindsay Leopold
And I think we just like started digging in from there and we ended up closing in August, I think. Right? Yeah.

20:06
Hannah Dittman
So exciting. And was this your was sling your Only investment partner did you need to continue to build out the round with anyone else on your cap table?

20:14
Lindsay Leopold
They are my only institutional investor. There were a few more angels and like small kind of like family offices that were interested investing. So it is one of those things that when you start seeing a bit of traction, that's when things heat up and you gotta, you know, while it took me a year to get to like past that first initial hump, once things started like building and growing, I think there was a lot of excitement and people wanting to be involved, which was exciting and great. So I want to say at that time there were probably like 10 more people that were had been interested, but said, this is too early for me. And so I said, hey, like, coming back, are you still interested? We're about to close. If you want to be in, like, now's the time.

20:50
Lindsay Leopold
So we ended up raising like a hundred over what my initial goal was. But, you know, was excited to bring people on board that were going to be like, great, like, strategic additions to the cap table.

21:01
Hannah Dittman
Super awesome job getting that over the finish line. As an early brand, that's hard to do. So just a testament to the conviction I'm sure people showed in your brand. Brandon, what was the kind of diligence process like from your side of the world? What were you looking to see to gain conviction and getting from. This is an interesting concept. I like this product. This tastes good to. I'm ready to write this person a check. And I really believe in this as an investment in a portfolio company.

21:30
Brandon Alster
Yeah, 100%. You know, Lindsay, and the business is. It was. And it's still early days, but it really was early in their company journey. And candidly, a little even, you know, a little early for where we typically invest in a business. I think typically we may invest as on the earlier side where a brand is in a couple hundred stores and we could see some velocities data. And I think to Lindsey's credit, she cobbled together family and friends checks and was able to bring the product all the way through to packaging and, you know, into a handful of independent stores and getting those early numbers in. And something I noticed that became quite apparent is a lot of the early retail partners she had, they really wanted to carry this on their ship.

22:14
Brandon Alster
They really wanted to merchandise this box in a way that my wife might want to wear a handbag. Right. Like, they wanted to like jewelry supply to be seen in their shop because it just looked so beautiful on the shelf. And as Lindsey mentioned, she would ping Me with different company updates that she knew would get me excited around wins or reorders or you know, what if her stores, instead of ordering one shipment or pallet a month, now they're buying three pallets a month. And so continuing to like check in with me and share those exciting updates and early wins I think is something she did a really good job at. And yeah, I'm sure that she does with other investors that we may want to lead the seed round of the series a soon.

22:57
Brandon Alster
And so yeah, I mean we definitely take like very first principles approach to underwriting and doing due diligence on our companies. Of course, when we invest so early, there are times we're working with incomplete data and we don't have all 500 Whole Foods stores to review our performance in a retailer like that per se. But yeah, that's kind of like what our process looked like and what got us excited as our conversation evolved over the course of a few months.

23:23
Hannah Dittman
I love that really tangible advice and help to other founders of, you know, and I think it sheds a lot of color into what the process is actually like. It can feel like a lot of rejection to not get an immediate yes right. It's like if almost like if you went to go ask someone out on a date and they were like, and then you were like having to keep coming back and be like, you know, it's a unique experience that unless you're a founder or someone who has to fundraise for whatever reason, you might not experience that level of persistence and perceived rejection.

23:57
Hannah Dittman
And I think it just showcases how you navigated that beautifully and the kind of grit and hustle you have as a founder to keep going and keep your eye on that North Star and have the strength and courage to keep following up on what you believed in. And I think that is something that you'll hear from a lot of founders that is required in a fundraising process that maybe not all founders are aware of as how much you kind of touch and touch an investor and have so many touch points before eventually that all comes together. And to your point, Lindsay earlier, it's definitely not a one and done, right? It's like a process that you managed over months and months with the same folks. So kudos to you and great job.

24:34
Hannah Dittman
If you guys had to give founders a few pieces of advice about fundraising or selecting an investment partner or knowing if you need an investment partner in the first place or just advice in general, what would they be?

24:50
Lindsay Leopold
Do your research? Like, I think it's so important to Go into these meetings, like, knowing who you're talking to and the things that they're going to care about and remembering that it's a match, not a prize. Because I've had obviously dozens of conversations at this point. And when I talk to someone who gets it, I'm just like, it clicks. And I'm like, this is someone I want to be with. Whereas, you know, there's plenty of people that might invest in different categories or really value other things or, you know, might not appreciate the better for you food world. So it's really important to, like, focus on the people that you know are going to be more of that match. And yeah, it takes a really long time. And frankly, like, it drives you nuts as a founder sometimes how much time you devote fundraising.

25:27
Lindsay Leopold
But obviously, like, you have to do it to keep things, to keep the lights on. But when all you want to do is like, get back, like dive back into operations and like be working on the brand. And really, especially when it's like such foundational days, it can be hard to do both, for sure.

25:41
Brandon Alster
Yeah. I would say it's two things, right? Be comfortable and embrace rejection. I think it's something as a fund manager early in my days, you know, could embrace as well as a founder who, you know, if they're successful, they're going to be raising a lot more capital over the course of a series of rounds over the next bunch of years. And so the better you could get at embracing rejection and learning from your quote unquote failures, I think the better off you'll be. And the second thing I would say is try to get more and more comfortable with building relationships, talking to people, telling your story for the thousandth or ten thousandth time, and get people into your monthly or your quarterly updates so they could follow along.

26:24
Brandon Alster
I think that's like a really important skill that doesn't necessarily come easily for some people, or maybe it's easier for some more than others. But it's really important if you want to build, if your goal is to build a really big business. Because no one achieves success in this world without supporters and without a village. And so, you know, you're going to need to be able to handle or deal with failure and build supporters along the way in order to do that.

26:49
Hannah Dittman
Great advice and words of wisdom from both of you. You know, we spent a lot of time talking about the past. I'd love to spend a little bit of time talking about the future. Obviously, this is an exciting time for Joy Supply. Capital is obviously going to Enable you to accomplish some goals you guys have set out in the company. What are you most excited about for this partnership? What are you working on right now and where do you feel like the synergies of you guys coming together is really going to help push your company forward?

27:19
Lindsay Leopold
There's been a lot of operational wins lately, which for me is exciting. So we just signed with Rainforest Distribution which is a big direct distributor in the northeast. So they're taking their first pallets from us Friday this week, which is awesome because it means that they're gonna be able to like get their sales team out into the world and help us increase distribution. And then we just landed central market in Texas so that you know, we are in 20 to 25 states now, but a lot of definitely heavily in the New York area.

27:48
Lindsay Leopold
And so to get this account in Texas which is like so brand aligned, it's the high end arm of H E B is really exciting for me because I cannot wait to like get on the ground there and demo and talk to people and so much about building a brand like this is listening to what people really want and adjusting as you go. Like I'm not too proud to listen to what people want from this brand and kind of like shift my own messaging or perspective about what this is going to be based on that. So those are two things that I'm really excited about. We're definitely using the money to, you know, expand distribution. More doors means more inventory and obviously in cpg you're paying for all of that up front.

28:24
Lindsay Leopold
So we're funding much bigger production orders and then like the marketing efforts that goes alongside it.

28:30
Hannah Dittman
Brandon, anything that you're excited about or see the big vision for where Joy Supply is going to go or where you hope to guide them or partner and help along the story?

28:40
Brandon Alster
Yeah, totally. Look, as Lindsey mentioned, there's some really important things we're working on at the moment with respect to operations and supply chain. And one of the things I enjoy most about investing so early and what I call just helping a brand scale from pre seed to series A is trying to connect the dots and be as helpful as I can with founders. I've backed that love to support new founders of mine or other folks that could be helpful to Lindsey's efforts. And so that's one thing. But taking a step back, looking at the bigger picture, I'm really excited to see what we could do at some of these bigger retailers. And I think that it's a very necessary step to go into a bunch of really great Independents before getting that sprouts win or that Whole Foods win.

29:19
Brandon Alster
Now we have central market, which is super exciting. But yeah, I'm really excited to see what I believe will be a really great success in a launch at one of these really big natural retailers.

29:29
Hannah Dittman
Well, it's so exciting to see your guys's rapport and excitement and kind of blossoming professional relationship. They always say, you know, an investment partner, getting investors is like getting into a marriage and you want to make sure you pick the right one. It's so clear that you guys really are dreaming the same dream and really aligned on the company vision. And that has come throughout the whole conversation. And I think just a testament to show that, like you said, Lindsay, find the people that see it the way you see it, where you click, where you get excited and they're excited about what you're excited about. And you know that you're going to be driving the bus in the same direction versus like pulling each other's tails, going the opposite way. So fun to see you guys have come together.

30:11
Hannah Dittman
I'm so glad that you're part of the Startup CPG community. I'd love to pivot over to a Slack case study question. As you know, Startup CPG has the largest Slack community in the industry with now over 40,000 members. I'd love to pull a question directly from our channel and have you answer it as a case study for any founder that might have a similar question. Today's question is when and what should you have prepared in a data room?

30:36
Brandon Alster
Yeah, I think it's funny, like I typically ask my founders the same thing every the beginning of every process when we're deciding to go into deeper due diligence. And one of them I find so basic. But it's shocking how few of founders have this in their data room, which is a basic monthly P and L. And oftentimes I'll get a response that says, well, you know, we have no revenue, you know that we have very little revenue. And you know, other than revenue, there are expenses that shows up on that document. And so between P and L, a balance sheet and a cash flow statement, there's sort of three main financial statements. And I don't love to wear my investment banker hat, but I do have to at the beginning of these processes.

31:17
Brandon Alster
Those are kind of like basic items to include in a data room. And then ideally if you have velocities, data that's very interesting and relevant to review. If you have a list of retailers, I typically, I think I asked you for this, like a list of all the retailers you're in, the date you entered them, and you know how, what the scale of what they're purchasing looks like in terms of dollars and units, and then what's on the comm. Right. So, like, there's the list of retailers that you currently have confirmed, but then the retailers that you're in conversations with from the ones that verbally told you they're in, or maybe they even signed with you, but you haven't shipped to them yet, all the way down to the ones that you have an intro call with next week.

31:56
Brandon Alster
And so getting a really clear picture of what your retailer partnership list looks like is also relevant. And then I guess, like, a document or a spreadsheet which provides insights around just like, your gross margins and your unit economics of how much a box of cookies costs and what goes into that. I would say that's like, a really great starting point. I'm sure there are other things that come up eventually, like, we want to do a cat table review, for example, but that isn't something we would ask for upfront, I think, you know, we try to be thoughtful around the sequencing of certain items that we request.

32:28
Hannah Dittman
Super helpful. Lindsey, do you have any color to add or also maybe could expound a little bit on when you had your data room prepared and were you waiting for requests to come in to then populate something, or did you kind of have the. Some of the documents ready to go or thinking about that in advance?

32:45
Lindsay Leopold
Yeah, I mean, I had a lot of the information on hand, but then, of course, I wanted to, like, package it in a way that was, like, easy to read and, you know, not totally crazy, because I think you're often doing so many different things at once. As a founder, I think something that was hard for me to rewire my brain to think about was, like, having developed a number of products where I had, like, a set cost target and I have a set margin that I'm aiming for. The idea of, like, growing at a loss or operating at a loss is, like, really scary. And sometimes you have to spend money to grow.

33:14
Lindsay Leopold
And that, I think, was a mindset shift that I had to make to know that, like, investors are going to be used to seeing a couple months where you have losses, and that's not a crazy thing to see. But, like, for me, I kept being, like, in the red is bad, you know, but of course, when you're building something over the course of the year with no revenue, like, it is all expenses. So I think just. Just. Yeah, you have to be open and transparent and honest and obviously you should be like operating responsibly and not like lighting money on fire. But I think the right partner is going to understand and if they don't like they'll ask questions like why did you choose to spend money on XYZ thing?

33:47
Lindsay Leopold
But really they're just like trying especially so early, they're trying to understand the way you're thinking about things, the fact that you're organized, that you even have a sales pipeline and you're not just like off the cuff having conversations. Like just show that you have a plan and that you've really like thought it out.

34:00
Hannah Dittman
I think that's super helpful color and context coming from the founder side and I think it's so true. I think the realities of running a business are like until you reach a certain scale, it's the same thing as economies of scale. When you're thinking about your cogs, right? Until you reach a certain scale, your cogs reduction isn't going to come through and you're not going to reach optimal economies of scale. And I think the same thing is true in profitability and all these things. Like I think a lot of investors, even if you ask them, hey, at what year would you hope that your investment becomes profitable or when do you need to see profitability? I think investors will often have a perspective and point of view on some of that stuff as well. And I think a helpful alignment question.

34:38
Hannah Dittman
But I love Lindsey, what you said about just like you have to be honest and upfront, you can't try to massage anything in your data room. Obviously you want to put your best foot forward and you don't want to like be like here's every little mistake I've ever made like all at once. But you definitely like the numbers are the numbers, the facts are the facts and you want to be transparent. And I think that's both ways. Really important to judge someone's character as you're getting into a business relationship with them. And you want to make sure that feels really good, a great way to show it.

35:07
Brandon Alster
I'll just add that I don't think that it's major footfall at all to not like proactively share a data room with all these files. I actually think that like allowing an investor to request certain items is good, but to have those items prepared. Like you should have an investor ready P L and retailer pipeline list and all the items we mentioned. But I don't think it necessarily needs to be. It's neither good nor bad whether or not you're providing that proactively.

35:35
Hannah Dittman
Yeah, and I think it's fair. Like you want to make sure someone's taking you seriously and is actually moving towards writing a check before you disclose every piece of information about your business. And I think there's some savvy and tactical to that as well. It's definitely like a little bit of a dance in some of these things. But to your point, Brandon, like not waiting weeks to get back to someone because you needed to go create everything from scratch and you weren't operating with a lot of this information, I think can definitely help keep a process propelling forward well, this has been such a fun chat you guys. So much awesome wisdom, tangible examples and advice for all the listeners that are listening in. If you guys haven't tried Joy Supply, do yourself a favor and get some and try it out.

36:19
Hannah Dittman
The perfect snack to listen to your podcast episodes with. I'd love to ask one what's the best way for founders, investors or others to reach you, get in touch with you or follow along? And then second part of my question is if you have any openings for team members looking to join either one of your companies or any advice for anyone that might want to do so in the future.

36:44
Lindsay Leopold
So Our website is www.joysupply.com Our Instagram is etjoysupply. You can reach out to me on that Instagram or my personal is Lindsay Leopold and I am really looking for like an awesome content creator, brand marketer, someone who's hungry and in the New York area so that they can, you know, work directly with me and kind of like bop around the city to do some like activations and capture content. So if there's anyone listening that's their wheelhouse or they know someone who is great at that. Maybe, you know, they're right out of the college. Maybe they are looking for an internship that is kind of my most urgent need.

37:21
Brandon Alster
Awesome. My website is slingvc.com and founders or anyone looking to get in touch could reach out directly to myself on LinkedIn or by email, which you would find at the bottom of my website. And as far as hiring goes, we are always wearing our hiring hat for our portfolio companies and looking to meet great candidates that we could place across our portfolio. So folks in social media, operations, sales, marketing, et cetera, always looking to meet really talented, great folks across the CPG ecosystem. And then as far as growing the Sling Ventures team, there's nothing that we could announce quite yet. But hopefully over the next three to six months, we'll be thinking bigger picture around growing our team here at Slynt.

38:04
Hannah Dittman
Awesome. Well, thank you so much both of you again for your time. I can't wait to see all the amazing things Joy Supply gets up to and excited to be looking forward to the next big brand that Sling leans into in the future. Thank you so much again.

38:19
Lindsay Leopold
Yeah, thank you.

38:19
Brandon Alster
Thank you, Anna.

38:22
Hannah Dittman
Well friends, we've now arrived together at the end of another episode of the Startup CPG podcast, the top globally ranked podcast in cpg. And if you love this podcast, you'll love our Slack community even more. Here at Startup cpg, we're a community of brands and experts and you should join. Sign up @startupcpg.com you'll then get an invite to our online Slack community of over 35,000 All Star CPG members, hear about amazing events near you and all our special opportunities to get you in front of buyers, investors, brands and more. It's a free community. So what are you waiting for? I'll catch you on the next episode and I'll see you on the Slack.