John Foraker (Once Upon a Farm) - How To Craft A Story For Retail, Why Jennifer Garner Came On Board as Chief of Brand, and Their Approach To Scale

Our guest today is John Foraker, co-founder and CEO of Once Upon a Farm. Fresh snacks with immune-boosting probiotics to keep your little one's wellness top of mind. For chilly season or any reason! Before John was the CEO of Annie’s Inc. We discuss his learnings running Annie’s for over a decade, how he became the CEO of Once Upon a Farm, what led Jennifer Garner to become a co-founder, what it’s like developing a new category, why they chose to expand to retail really fast. Without further ado, here’s John. Some of the questions I ask John: What was your initial attraction to natural foods and natural products? What were some of your learnings running Annie’s for nearly 20 years? What was the aha moment and led you to found Once Upon A Farm? What were the first steps after realizing this was something you wanted to pursue? How did you connect with Jennifer Garner and have her come on board? How do you build a brand in a new category? How did you approach building the supply chain? What has been the hardest parts of building Once Upon A Farm? How did you approach fundraising?What’s the biggest reason why a company passed on you? What’s the best thing that’s happened to the business?What’s the worst? How do you think about your positioning when you enter retail - natural grocery or conventional? How do you approach scale? What’s your fascination with NFTs? What’s one thing you would change about raising venture capital? What’s one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?Omnivore’s dilemma Ramping your brand by James Richardson What’s one piece of advice you have for founders?

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The Consumer VC takes a look into early-stage consumer investing and venture capital. If you are interested in learning about consumer trends, have a b2c business and interested in learning about the fundraising process at the early stage, you have come to the right place. Mike interviews some of the top venture capitalists in the world that focus on B2C and consumer type companies or have a deep track record investing in these categories such as marketplaces, SaaS, social, CPG and non-tech subscription. Mike also interviews founders that are building some of the most disruptive consumer facing companies in the world. The conversation usually includes the insight the founder discovered, fundraising strategy, and the pitch. This podcast also includes bonus episodes. Each bonus episode dives into a particular subject that might not have to due with the fundraise or venture capital, but still would be helpful to founders. For example, a bonus episode on brand strategy or how to construct a board of directors. All bonus episodes will be clearly labeled. For all episodes, please visit www.theconsumervc.com. For updates, you can follow @mikegelb on Twitter.