How This Addictive Cheese Brand Turned Startup Mistakes Into a $20M Empire | Entrepreneurship | How We Profit | E1

Starting a business from scratch is hard enough, but Rebel Cheese co-founder Kirsten Maitland did it by borrowing against her home, only for COVID to hit three months later. With no outside investors and everything at risk, she pivoted from a physical restaurant to an online business, learning e-commerce, logistics, and marketing on the fly. Years of relentless work eventually led to a Shark Tank deal with Mark Cuban that fueled massive business growth. In this episode of How We Profit, Kirsten breaks down how she scaled Rebel Cheese into a $20M+ business with over 60% profit margins while retaining 90% ownership. In this episode, Hala and Kirsten will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (03:34) Inside Rebel Cheese's Business Model (07:26) Revenue Streams and Shipping Challenges (14:52) Kirsten's Path to Entrepreneurship (23:10) How Shark Tank Fueled Business Growth (27:30) Rebel Cheese’s Branding and Marketing Strategies (33:26) Making Sales and Doubling Revenue in CPG (49:24) Using AI in Business to Scale Operations (1:00:28) Founder Pay, Equity, and Ownership (1:07:20) Entrepreneurship Lessons for Startup Founders Kirsten Maitland is the co-founder and CEO of Rebel Cheese, an artisanal plant-based cheese brand based in Austin, Texas. She bootstrapped the business from scratch, landed a $750K deal with Mark Cuban on Shark Tank in 2023, and has since scaled to a $40 million valuation, now on pace to generate $21 million in revenue this year. Kirsten is also a passionate advocate for AI-powered business tools, having built her own shipping audit tool that recovered $400,000 in overcharges. Sponsored By: Indeed - Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at Indeed.com/profiting Shopify - Start your $1/month trial at Shopify.com/profiting. Quo - Run your business communications the smart way. Try Quo for free, plus get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to quo.com/profiting Remitly - Transfer money internationally across 100+ currencies with no hidden fees. Download the Remitly app or visit remitly.com to get started. Use code BUSINESS to get a $100 bonus after you send $300 or more. New customers only. Prolon - Reset your body with Prolon’s five-day plant-based program. Go to ProlonLife.com/PROFITING for 15% off sitewide plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their 5-Day Program. Northwest Registered Agent - Get a complete business identity with Northwest. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com/YAPFree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Resources Mentioned: Kirsten’s Company, Rebel Cheese: rebelcheese.com Kirsten’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kirstenmaitland Rebel Cheese Instagram: instagram.com/rebel.cheese How Not to Die by Dr. Michael Greger: bit.ly/DrMG-HowNot2Die Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap YouTube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting Newsletter - youngandprofiting.co/newsletter LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Social + Podcast Services: yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Podcast, Business, Business Podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Starting a Business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side Hustle, Startup, Mental Health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth Mindset, Passive Income, Solopreneur, Networking

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Hala Taha?

  Today's episode is sponsored in part by HeyGen, Shopify, Life at the Speed of Play, and Indeed. HeyGen helps you create AI avatar videos without constantly being behind the camera. Get your first three videos free at heygen.com/profitting. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you grow your business. Start your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com/profitting. Life at the Speed of Play by Mark Pincus helps entrepreneurs quickly test ideas and find the ones worth pursuing. Get two books for the price of one at GetMark'sBook.com/Yap. Indeed helps you attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at Indeed.com/podcast.

• 0:45Hala Taha?

  As always, you can find all of our incredible deals in the show notes or at YoungAndProfiting.com/deals.

• 0:52Speaker 01

  We built a $20 million company from 750K. We've doubled our growth year over year, the last couple of years. Our valuation now is actually 40 million.

• 1:02Hala Taha?

  I love that.

• 1:05Hala Taha?

  Today's guest is Kirsten Maitland, co-founder and CEO of Rebel Cheese, a premium plant-based cheese brand with e-commerce, wholesale, and retail revenue streams that saw explosive growth after a Shark Tank appearance.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  We actually started as a restaurant in Austin. That was 100% of our revenue. And a few months later, COVID hit. Today, 90% of our revenue is from e-commerce.

• 1:30Hala Taha?

  You go on Shark Tank and Mark Cuban invested like right away. Like you didn't even finish your pitch.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was his fastest deal ever.

• 1:38Hala Taha?

  How much profit are you making every month?

• 1:40Speaker 01

  Right now, we're hovering around 61% profit margin.

• 1:43Hala Taha?

  Wow, that's really high. Traditionally, this industry has very low profit margins with the shipping. What are you doing differently?

• 1:49Speaker 01

  I honestly believe it's because...

• 1:52Hala Taha?

  So talk to me about how you compensate yourself as a business owner.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  We didn't pay ourselves for years.

• 1:57Hala Taha?

  Really? What would you say is the reason for doubling?

• 2:00Speaker 01

  Well...

• 2:02Hala Taha?

  What are the most important KPIs for you?

• 2:04Speaker 01

  We're looking at our cost...

• 2:06Hala Taha?

  You are raising another $20 million.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  Not 20 million.

• 2:10Hala Taha?

  Okay, how much are you raising?

• 2:12Speaker 01

  We're raising...

• 2:15Hala Taha?

  Welcome to the How We Profit series. Real Yap listeners, real numbers, and real businesses. In every episode of this series, an entrepreneur you've never heard of breaks down exactly how they profit. Real revenue, real margins, employee count, marketing strategy, sales strategy, you name it. No highlight reel, no motivational fluff, just how the business actually works so you can steal what's relevant for yours. Young and Profiting isn't just about learning from billionaires and millionaires. It's about becoming one. Most business podcasts interview people after they've made it. I mean, I've been doing that with Yap for the last eight years. But by then, the story is polished, the numbers can be vague, and the advice is sometimes just follow your passion. But that's not useful to somebody trying to figure out pricing, or wondering if they

• 3:00Hala Taha?

  should hire their first employee, or deciding whether they can quit their job. How We Profit is the opposite. We're going to be sitting down with the real entrepreneurs, Yap listeners, who have been studying growth on this show and who are actually applying it in real time. We're going to ask them to open their books. The result is going to be the most honest business content on the internet. A podcast mastermind group where every member shows up with their receipts. Kirsten, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.

• 3:30Speaker 01

  Hi, thanks for having me.

• 3:31Hala Taha?

  I'm so excited because this is a brand new series. You are my first guest on the How We Profit series. And my team was sending me like a list of people to review, and I saw Rebel Cheese. And I was like, this would be such a cool business to unpack. So I'm really excited for this interview. For people who don't know what Rebel Cheese is, how would you describe your business in a sentence?

• 3:54Speaker 01

  It's an artisanal, plant-based cheese that's made for cheese lovers. Fun fact, 74% of our customers are not vegan.

• 4:03Hala Taha?

  That is so crazy. So if 74% of your customers are not vegan, why do they want vegan cheese?

• 4:10Speaker 01

  It's because cheese was taken away from them, either due to medical reasons, or they're allergic, or they simply just don't feel good after eating cheese. So they're looking for an alternative that they can put on a cheese board, pair with wine, you know, a gourmet-style cheese, and that's where we come in.

• 4:31Hala Taha?

  I bet you guys, a lot of you don't feel great after you eat cheese. So vegan cheese is a great option for you. So talk to us about the category that you're in. So CPG, right? Your consumer product.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:45Hala Taha?

  Is that the only category you consider yourself in? Or how would you describe that?

• 4:49Speaker 01

  I see it as we're competing with dairy cheeses. We are a CPG brand, yes. We also have our e-commerce store. That's where most of our revenue comes from. But when you look at where we're placed in the grocery store, it's right there with the dairy cheeses or next to the vegan products, the vegan cheeses.

• 5:08Hala Taha?

  What is your typical customer like?

• 5:10Speaker 01

  This is interesting because it's evolved over the years. When we first started, our customers were pretty young, mostly women. And after we aired on Shark Tank a couple of years ago, the demographics have gotten higher and higher. And most of our customers tend to be women over 65 years old. They're worried about their health. They're looking for an alternative that's clean, made with ingredients that they know. And that's why they seek us out.

• 5:41Hala Taha?

  That's so interesting. So like, not only can your product evolve, your audience can evolve as well. I'm going to talk to you about marketing and branding, and maybe if you had anything to do with that evolution or if it happened naturally. But first, I want to understand, like, how big is your company? I read somewhere that you have a $20 million valuation. That's insane. So talk to us about how big your company is, whether it's revenue, number of employees, and so on.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  Yes, our valuation now is actually 40 million.

• 6:11Hala Taha?

  Wow.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  So we're on track to do 20 million this year. And we're doing our capital raise right now. Yes, and I mean, we've doubled our growth year over year, the last couple of years. So it's moving really fast. Our team size, it fluctuates depending on the season because we are very seasonal. But right now, we have 50 people on the team. We do everything in-house. We're control freaks. So we make all the cheeses by hand ourselves. Some of them take two weeks to make. We package those, fulfill them, ship them. We do everything. So that's why our team is around 50 people.

• 6:53Hala Taha?

  Really cool. And everything is based in the US, like your manufacturing is in Austin, correct?

• 6:58Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, we have a factory here. My husband and I built a lot of it ourselves while we were practicing our shark tank pitch. We were doing both at the same time. Luckily, he has a construction background. So yes, we have our own factory that we built and that's where we make all our cheeses. They're all made there.

• 7:16Hala Taha?

  Hmm. Okay, so you've got multiple different revenue streams. So walk us through each way that you make money.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  Yes. It's funny because when we started seven years ago, we actually started as a restaurant in Austin and that was 100% of our revenue. And then a few months later, COVID hit and like other small businesses, we started pivoting and doing things we never planned to do, like ship perishables nationwide. So we started our cheese club online. We started shipping direct to businesses. It was a little messy in the beginning, you know, orders arriving warm and you know, so on and so forth. But we kept iterating. Our partners helped us and we figured it out. And now, fast forward seven years to today, 90% of our revenue is from e-commerce.

• 8:09Hala Taha?

  Oh, wow. That's really interesting. Okay, so for our young improfitters that want to start a CPG business, what would you say is some of the biggest challenges you faced, especially with like an e-commerce CPG business?

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Yes. Oh, my gosh. Shipping

• 8:26Hala Taha?

  Yep.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  comes to mind. A couple of years ago, we were overcharged by a quarter million dollars.

• 8:31Hala Taha?

  Hmm.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Not an overexaggeration. So I actually built an AI tool. I vibe coded a tool to get some of that money back and to make sure that never happens again. Shipping is challenging because if you don't watch it closely, like a hawk, you will get overcharged and there can be sometimes a 600% variance in those charges. And their invoices are huge. They're hundreds of pages long with, you know, so many lines of data. Therefore, it can be challenging to catch these issues.

• 9:06Hala Taha?

  Mm hmm.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  So if you're doing e-commerce, watch your shipping very closely. If you don't do it in-house and you partner with like a co-man or a co-pack, I've heard, I haven't experienced this because we do everything ourselves, but I've heard the same challenges can happen there, where you know, charges come out of nowhere and the contracts are hard to navigate. So just keeping a very close eye on your numbers, on your data, and making sure that it matches what you agreed to.

• 9:37Hala Taha?

  Yeah, and you've got this like added layer of complexity because you've got perishable foods.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 9:44Hala Taha?

  And it needs to be cold as it's shipped. And there's an expiration date. So like for somebody who wants to start a CPG brand that is also food, what are the things that they have to consider?

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Obviously packaging is huge. I say obviously, but probably not obvious, actually. It took us a while to refine this and figure it out. We're a mission-driven brand. Therefore, it's important that we use compostable packaging or recyclable packaging. We're not going to use styrofoam, never, ever, which you know, has the longest refrigeration out of everything. So we had to experiment a lot and we're always shopping around and trying new things. Even when we've settled on our packaging, mostly our insulation and our ice, we're still looking for the next thing to see if there's something that is better

• 10:37Speaker 01

  and will extend the shipping time or be more reliable. So constantly be shopping your options, testing new things to see what does and doesn't work. When we first started shipping, we were getting one day out of our packaging, meaning it would keep it cold for one day. Now we get three days.

• 10:57Hala Taha?

  Oh, nice.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  And it's fully compostable.

• 11:00Hala Taha?

  Really cool. So that must have been a lot of experimentation and a lot of cost associated with that.

• 11:08Hala Taha?

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• 11:47Hala Taha?

  And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help give your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/podcast. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast, Young and Profiting. That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need the right hire fast? Then this is a job for Indeed Sponsor Jobs. What's up, Yap fam? If you're building a personal brand, you already know how hard it is to stay consistent with content when you're also trying to actually run your business. I love creating content, but realistically, I'm not trying to sit in front of the camera every single day. I need time to work on my business.

• 12:31Hala Taha?

  But the problem is consistency matters. The more people see your face and hear your voice, the more familiar you become. That's why HeyGen has been such a great tool for me. You can record just 15 seconds of footage, create an AI avatar of yourself, and use it to make videos on demand. So instead of constantly filming from scratch, you can create more content, stay visible, and keep showing up without making your entire life be about generating content. And you guys know I'm always looking for tools that give entrepreneurs more leverage. HeyGen is definitely one of those tools. 30 million people already use it, from solo founders to 85% of the Fortune 100. Your first three videos are free at heygen.com/profitting.

• 13:14Hala Taha?

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• 13:27Hala Taha?

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• 14:11Hala Taha?

  Go to GetMark'sBook.com/Yap, buy one copy for $32 and get a second copy free, so you can keep one for yourself and give the second to a friend, future co-founder, or someone who needs a little push. So talk us through the unit economics of cheese, vegan cheese. Somebody buys, like, how much does it cost on your website? How much does it cost to ship? How much do you make per unit?

• 14:36Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Our cheese varies from $15 to $20 a unit. We have very different types of cheeses. Some take two days to make, others take two weeks to make. So that's why there's that variance there. It really depends how much handholding it needs. And then the shipping costs, they're still expensive.

• 14:59Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Even with our volume, we're averaging $22 to $25 a box, depending on the time of year. And what's really challenging with that, customers are used to Amazon free shipping, you know, get it in an hour. So you can't really pass those costs on to your customers. You have to find a way to build it into the box. If you try to charge them $20 for shipping, you know, they're having a panic attack. They're just not used to that, which is understandable, right?

• 15:33Hala Taha?

  Yeah, so give us an example. If, so if you need to bake in $20 for shipping costs that you don't want to charge separately on a separate line item because they'll just exit out of the cart, what are something, like, what are you doing and putting in the box to make it worth it?

• 15:48Speaker 01

  We offer a lot of prepackaged options, like we have a Shark Tank box, a birthday celebration box. So we let that dominate our page. We do offer single units of cheese too. But of course, we'd rather our customers purchase the prepackaged boxes because they're optimized for shipping and packaging. If they do select to buy individual wheels or cheese, then we, there is a minimum to get the free shipping. So they have to spend eighty dollars in order for free shipping to apply. And if they're below that, then there's a twenty dollar shipping cost.

• 16:26Hala Taha?

  How big is subscriptions for you guys? Are you doing like recurring subscriptions for people who want their cheese all the time?

• 16:32Speaker 01

  It's something we're working on currently. We're improving that. Due to our rapid e-commerce growth, we doubled our sales year over year. We've basically been doing the bare minimum. So now that we have some room to breathe and take a step back, we're actually improving our subscription model and adding on incentives and tiers like exclusive events and free shipping, you know, discounts and so on and so forth. So we haven't really historically done a lot of subscription models, but we're planning to launch that in the next couple of months.

• 17:11Hala Taha?

  Okay, so I want to take a pause on the actual business and talk about Kirsten's origin story. Because you weren't always an entrepreneur. You were in tech, right?

• 17:22Speaker 01

  I started in the Navy. If we go way back, I was actually in the Navy on a ship. And that's what got me into tech. I was in a car accident, transferred off of my ship. My captain was at the same time. Initially, they had me answering phones and he said, "I can't imagine you doing that. I'm going to transfer you to tech." I had never worked in tech before. I said, "Okay, I like to learn. Let's give it a go." And they just started handing me tickets. I figured it out on the job. And that was the launch of my over a decade tech career.

• 17:59Hala Taha?

  Really cool. So you worked at all these different companies. You got divorced at some point. And you met your husband at a putt putt club or something like that. And how did you guys end up wanting to start a cheese company?

• 18:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we met at a putt putt golf because we're both going through divorces. Um, my husband and I, we wanted to meet a new circle of friends. And um, so we joined this putt putt with no intention of meeting anyone. And of course, we met each other. We, you know, we were together for several months before we were, you know, got together. And um, several years later, we transitioned to a vegan diet. Um, I lost my parents at a very young age, both to cancer. And um, I read about a link between cancer and dairy in Dr. Michael Greger's book, How Not to Die.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  And the second I read that, I quit dairy overnight, but I loved cheese. Uh, I had it with every single meal. We used to have cheese boards all the time and picnics and, you know, all the things you do around cheese. So we were like, well, what are we gonna do now?

• 19:12Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  We started experimenting at home and we had a little wine fridge. That's where our first brie was born, a little eight bottle wine fridge. And we knew we were on to something, you know, with those experiments. And at the same time, we were both consultants. Uh, we had these very successful careers and businesses. But we kept having this nagging feeling that we wanted to do something that better aligned with our values. Which, you know, is animal welfare or health or planets. We're very passionate about those things. So we just went for it. Uh, you know, we couldn't get rid of that nagging feeling. And we dove right in and opened our restaurant in Austin.

• 19:57Hala Taha?

  Wow. But there had to have been steps before you actually opened up the restaurant. So I really want to dig deep there because I bet you there's a lot of young improfitters listening out there who have this awesome idea, especially for a product, because vegan cheese wasn't really in existence at the That point like you were one of the first vegan cheese suppliers, right? So talk to us about how you like perfected the cheese. Did you do any research? Did you do any testing? How did you come up with the restaurant idea? Why not go straight to e-commerce? Like, talk to me about how it all happened.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, luckily, I'm very OCD about things. This is where it pays off and we still do tests and R and D now. We have someone who's dedicated to that. He's been with us for six years now. It's part of our DNA. It's very important to us. Even for our top-selling items, we still have tests going to see if we can improve them even more, even if it's just by a margin. So when we decided to launch Rebel Cheese, we hired a chef. We were still both working full-time and we worked with the chef for a year on, you know, doing our development and testing and coming up with these ideas.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  And that's when our first cheeses were born and we also defined our restaurant menu at that time, too. And then when we opened the restaurant, we hired people on the team to continue that R and D. We also brought in cheese scientists, collaborated with them. We've learned a lot from the dairy industry and dairy experts, who've been working in the dairy industry for decades. We truly believed, because we've been vegan for a long time ourselves, that we needed to lean into that dairy expertise, including trying the cheese, giving us feedback on it, because we knew it had been too long for us to really know what good cheese tastes like anymore.

• 21:54Hala Taha?

  So you basically started as a restaurant.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:57Hala Taha?

  So talk to us about the challenges of having a restaurant. I know you no longer have the restaurant in Austin. Talk to us about the challenges in terms of like margin with restaurants and the things that if somebody wants to open up a restaurant, they need to consider and why ultimately you had to close your doors.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  The restaurant was extremely hard. Well, one, we opened it three months before COVID hit.

• 22:20Hala Taha?

  Oh, no.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  And you know, when we opened the restaurant, we had no idea how it would do. It it was such a unique concept, a vegan wine and cheese shop. Really nothing like it in the world. So luckily, we started small. It was only eleven hundred square feet, which was a lifesaver during covid. Because we didn't know.

• 22:42Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  Um, and when we opened our doors, we had a line down the street. So we're like, oh, we'll be okay. But then, of course, covid. Um, the challenge with the restaurant, and it actually set us up for success ultimately, is that the margins are so tight. And then you layer in, you know, vegan concept. And that makes it even more challenging because you have a smaller demographic that's going to go to your restaurant. Um, so you have to watch them like a hawk. You have to be careful with every single expense. From the get go, I set up tools to watch these things and monitor. And I'm so glad I did.

• 23:23Hala Taha?

  Mm hmm.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  Because had I not done that, I don't think we would have survived the six years that we did.

• 23:29Hala Taha?

  So for somebody who wants to open up a restaurant business, like if any of the listeners are interested in doing that, what are the guardrails that they need to put in place? Like, what are some of the things that you were you were realizing that the money was just going away because it was getting spent frivolously in certain areas? Like, what what do they exactly need to watch?

• 23:48Speaker 01

  Margins, very, very important. I used a tool called Margin Edge. And one of the reasons that tool worked so well was because if the prices went up on any of the ingredients, it would alert you. So you could see any price changes. You could say, this is what my margin needs to be. Send me an email if that margin changes. Because ingredient costs, especially now, are constantly fluctuating. And they really are a big factor when you're looking at your margins. So you have to watch that closely. Waste, what's selling, what's not. And if something's not performing, make the hard decision to remove it from your menu. Or from your store.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Don't keep it because you're attached or it was your grandma's recipe or whatever. If it's not working, cut it because that will eat away at your margins too. So monitoring those things very, very closely. You know, of course, making sure you have your schedules tight for when you're open. You know, opening hours need to match with customer demands. If there are hours when you're where you're not busy, cut those too. So you have to watch every little expense very closely and act on things that aren't working well immediately.

• 25:13Hala Taha?

  So then COVID happened, you pivoted to e-commerce. At what point did you go on Shark Tank?

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Yes, we went on Shark Tank in 2023, towards the end, right before the holidays. We opened a restaurant in 2019, so it was four years after opening. And we applied during COVID because like everyone, we were we were trying everything.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  I was applying to every competition there was, every grant, PPP, you name it. Yeah, I was in survival hustle mode.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  Didn't think for a second we would get on.

• 25:50Hala Taha?

  I mean, great decision. Like, thank God you did that.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know, they told us all along, you may not get on, you may not air. Even when they told us we were airing, they said you still may not if there's an emergency. So we were excited but holding our breath the entire time until it actually aired. But still trying to prepare for this moment too.

• 26:14Hala Taha?

  Yeah, so you go on Shark Tank and Mark Cuban actually invested like right away. Like you didn't even finish your pitch.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:23Hala Taha?

  I think he was he's like actually passionate about, I think, veganism and the topic, right? So talk to us about how much money you made and what happened after the Shark Tank episode aired.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Yes, it was his fastest deal ever.

• 26:35Hala Taha?

  Wow.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  Mark is known for waiting until the end and he tried the cheese. And immediately made us an offer. And we were worried because we were like, were we out there long enough for there to be material for this to air? Cause it felt like we were out there for five minutes. But the producers, they were like, no, it's okay. You were actually out there for 50 minutes. It just felt like five. And you know, it's, it's been amazing. We are so grateful. Mark is incredibly supportive and helpful. We asked him to help us with some videos for marketing. He said yes. He gave us a whole hour of his time. Anytime I send him an update or an email, he responds immediately. I don't know how.

• 27:22Hala Taha?

  Well, he does that for everyone. Cause even when I email him, he'll like answer and like, I'll be like, do you want to come on Yap? And he'll be like, soon. Like one word answers.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, sometimes they're a little cryptic. I'm like trying to turn it upside down to decipher what he's trying to tell me. Cause it's like one sentence. But he's been fantastic and he has a team that's also very supportive and helpful. And we're very grateful for this opportunity.

• 27:49Hala Taha?

  That's really cool. So you got $750,000. Was that your, so talk to me about how you funded your company? Did you use your personal money? Was it the first time you had an investor? And Lori also invested as well, right? No? Not on the end?

• 28:02Speaker 01

  She made us an offer, but then she had a conflict with another company. Mark took her shares. So. Yes. Mark is our only investor at this point.

• 28:11Hala Taha?

  Amazing.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  Yes. When we started the restaurant, we worked right up until the day we opened. We actually got a HELOC against our house to open the restaurant. As I mentioned before, my husband has a construction background. He used to be a carpenter. So we were able to build that out pretty efficiently too, with just this HELOC. And that's all we've raised until now. We're doing a capital raise now to continue our growth. But we've built a $20 million company from 750K.

• 28:44Hala Taha?

  I love that. I love that. And that's so, so inspiring. If you could do it all over again, would you take that $750 from Mark Cuban? $750,000 from Mark Cuban? If you could do it all over again, would you do it that way?

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Absolutely. One of the challenges we face as a vegan brand, there's a lot of hesitation around vegan foods. People have been burned by vegan cheese before. They're always asking, is it actually really good? Is it truly healthy? Is it overly processed? And having the Sharks share their delight and excitement over our products has helped us tremendously.

• 29:28Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Convert those customers.

• 29:30Hala Taha?

  Yeah, so you guys blew up basically after Shark Tank.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:34Hala Taha?

  At that point, were you ready for that kind of business to be coming your way?

• 29:39Speaker 01

  Well, my husband and I, after we aired, we worked five all-nighters in a row. Not an overexaggeration. Luckily, the Navy taught me how to do that, although I'm getting a little old for that now. But we were determined and we really wanted to succeed. And we get one chance with these customers. You know, so it's important that we deliver. And we're very strict about our quality standards and everything being perfect. So we got in the kitchen. We made that cheese. We overcommunicated to our customers. Like if there are any delays or anything like that, we just made sure they knew.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  And because of all those things, it was a success. Although, you know, it very well could have not been because it's a lot of traffic coming your way out of nowhere.

• 30:33Hala Taha?

  Yeah. You've really branded yourself as this gourmet vegan cheese.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:39Hala Taha?

  And one of the things that comes across in this interview is you're really into quality and you, everything's US-based, you're doing everything by hand. You've never really outsourced it.

• 30:52Hala Taha?

  What are like the pros and cons of doing that?

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh. The pros, you can pivot quickly and you can always be testing and learning. If if we outsourced our production, if we wanted to try a new idea, it would take weeks to months to do so. Whereas, you know, we can turn around a new idea in a couple of weeks, um, like or even less than that, depending on what it is.

• 31:17Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Um, so that's a huge plus. Quality, like you mentioned, is another one. I've heard of companies going to co-man's and then having quality issues. Um, especially with cultured products like ours are, it can get complicated fast. Um, you know, her brie only has five ingredients, but it's 20 steps to make.

• 31:42Hala Taha?

  Hmm.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  And that's one of the main reasons we want to keep all of that in-house. We just don't trust that someone will understand our process like we do.

• 31:52Hala Taha?

  Yeah. Rebel Cheese is a cool name. I mean, that's one of the reasons why I saw the name and I was like, this sounds cool. Like, I want her on Yap. Um, what was up with the name and and do you feel like it's helped you? That's one part of the question. The second part of the question is, how do you think people find you now? Like, it's been a couple of years since the Shark Tank thing. Like, how are people finding out about you?

• 32:16Speaker 01

  The name was such a process. My husband, he's the executor. I love to analyze. I definitely, if it wasn't for him, I'd probably still be analyzing things now. Rebel Cheese would have never started. And I was like that with the name and the branding. You know, we went through so many iterations of names and we wanted something sentimental. So we started with pet names and family names and they all just were just weird. They didn't work. Um, so then we moved on to things that we felt like defined what we were trying to accomplish. And that's where Rebel Cheese came about. And, you know, we've used the same techniques as the dairy industry, like I mentioned.

• 32:58Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  So that's why we wanted cheese in the name. And that's why we kept the spelling the same. Uh, many vegan companies will change the spelling, like they'll put a Z in there or something like that. But since we use the techniques, same techniques, we wanted to keep it.

• 33:12Hala Taha?

  Oh, that's so smart. That's such a, that's such a good hack.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:16Hala Taha?

  So it's like, don't get fancy with your name where you have no SEO.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. There's that too. And then your second question around keeping customers coming back. We invest a lot in marketing now. We didn't used to. We started that with Shark Tank. We have a pretty substantial email list that we've been building. That's very important to us. We've learned a lot along the way about that. We also advertise on Meta. That can be challenging.

• 33:46Hala Taha?

  You're doing like paid ads.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  Paid ads, yes. And again, we watch our numbers daily with that. Because that's another thing, like the restaurant, that can become very expensive. And before you know it, you're not profitable if you're not watching that very closely. So that's another way we reach our customers. Plus, we're big into community. So we love to get involved with our community. We do a lot of events. We're doing a market in California this month. We're partnering with a restaurant in LA to do a wine and cheese night. So we believe, you know, in the world of AI,

• 34:28Speaker 01

  that connecting with your community and customers is more important than ever. So we put a lot of emphasis on that, too.

• 34:36Hala Taha?

  Are you leveraging podcasts or influencers or doing like a lot? For me, like as an influencer, I'm getting a lot of influx, especially for consumer-based products. For like UGC and whitelisted ads, where basically I'll have a video and I'll promote the brand, and then the brand will put paid ads on it. And that's becoming really popular. Are you doing things like that?

• 34:58Speaker 01

  We just started looking at that. We haven't done a ton of that historically, to be quite honest. But we are trying to diversify, and that is certainly one way to do that. We're testing out a tool called Refunnel that we discovered through our Shark Tank community, which helps you find influencers and do whitelisting and so on. But we just started like a month ago. We're also looking into podcasts, too. We really want to diversify. We don't want to be as dependent as we are on paid ads and Meta specifically.

• 35:34Hala Taha?

  Yeah. Well, the community events are really smart. How do you think about your personal brand when it comes to marketing of Rebel Cheese?

• 35:43Speaker 01

  Personal brands like myself.

• 35:45Hala Taha?

  Yeah, like yourself, or that that might be the answer in itself is that like you're just all about pushing the the product brand. Is that right?

• 35:53Speaker 01

  Interesting. Um, so my husband and I, we want to do more, you know, like be online more organically and do more behind the scenes because again, you know, in the world of AI, that authenticity and the story and the people behind the brand is so important. I started a few months ago doing founder emails every week and those have been really popular. So, um, yeah, putting yourselves out there so your customers can see, you know, where their dollar is going, I think is incredibly important.

• 36:28Hala Taha?

  Yeah. Okay, let's talk revenue. Let's talk money.

• 36:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:32Hala Taha?

  This is young and profiting after all. And I I think everybody wants to understand like how to profit off a CPG business. So talk to me about like year one, how much did you make year two, year three, like, and when did it really like start to take off?

• 36:45Speaker 01

  Yes. So year one, you know, we were like 750 K year two, 1.2, and then it went up like 500 K each year after that until we were on Shark Tank in 2024, which is still great because that was all organic growth.

• 37:03Hala Taha?

  Hmm.

• 37:04Speaker 01

  And it was mostly the restaurant and during COVID. So it proved the demand. We did launch our e-commerce too, but we we didn't do any kind of marketing with that.

• 37:15Hala Taha?

  So that e-commerce really took off once Shark Tank hit.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  Yes. We were in the New York Times before Shark Tank and we learned a lot from that. We got a huge influx of traffic, but then we didn't do anything with it.

• 37:26Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 37:27Speaker 01

  So all these people came in and then they went away and we're like, oh no, come back.

• 37:31Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  So we learned a lot about email and SMS marketing and we implemented those learnings when we were on Shark Tank because the same thing could have happened there if we didn't do more, you know, with our marketing, like our paid and email.

• 37:46Hala Taha?

  Yeah. So how about currently, how much are you making a month? How many like, what do you what do you call your unit? Of cheese, like what, how do you, how do you

• 37:54Speaker 01

  Cheese wheels.

• 37:55Hala Taha?

  Cheese wheels, how do you cheese wheels? Are you selling for month?

• 37:58Speaker 01

  It depends on the month. We're very seasonal. Um, the holidays are busiest time of year, Mother's Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving. We're um, on track to do 21 million this year. Um, and a big chunk of that will be quarter four and quarter one. Um, because of the, you know, special occasions, people are celebrating with our cheese.

• 38:21Hala Taha?

  Hmm.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  Um, and then, you know, you asked year over year. So last year we did 15. The year before that we did seven. So we've pretty much doubled year over year, the last couple of years.

• 38:33Hala Taha?

  What would you say is the reason for doubling? How did you double?

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Well, sticking to your um, values like ours, quality, very important. So we have a very high returning customer rate. Around 40 to 45% and that's with investing a lot in marketing. Because that obviously drives that down because you're bringing new customers in. Um, so quality, having new product launches. So there's a reason, you know, another reason for them to come back has definitely um, helped us grow our sales. And then, you know, the marketing things that I've mentioned, um. You know, that's without a doubt fueled our growth because if people don't know about us, obviously they're not going to buy us.

• 39:21Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  Even with that, I still hear all the time, I didn't know about you. I wish I did. Um, even with us reaching millions and millions of people with our meta ads.

• 39:31Hala Taha?

  Um. Now, where are you, where's your website house? Are you using like Shopify or what are you using Shopify?

• 39:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 39:38Hala Taha?

  Yes. Another Shopify user. I love, this was not a sponsored plug, but Shopify is going to be very happy about this. I love that you're using Shopify. That's, that's what you've used from the start.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  We were using something else called Chargebee before Shopify, but then we outgrew them and moved over right before Shark Tank. We saw like all the traffic that was coming and we recruited our friend Paul. He used to work at Amazon to help us with our Shopify store. He's been with us a few years now, so he got us ready for Shark Tank. He made sure everything was stable, all the integrations were set up correctly with like ShipStation and, you know, all the other shipping tools. And he's been helping us ever since.

• 40:23Hala Taha?

  Love that. What's up, Yap fam? If you're building a personal brand, you already know how hard it is to stay consistent with content when you're also trying to actually run your business. I love creating content, but realistically, I'm not trying to sit in front of the camera every single day. I need time to work on my business. But the problem is consistency matters. The more people see your face and hear your voice, the more familiar you become. That's why HeyGen has been such a great tool for me. You can record just 15 seconds of footage, create an AI avatar of yourself and use it to make videos on demand. So instead of constantly filming from scratch, you can create more content, stay visible and keep showing up without making your entire life be about generating content.

• 41:07Hala Taha?

  And you guys know I'm always looking for tools that give entrepreneurs more leverage. HeyGen is definitely one of those tools. 30 million people already use it, from solo founders to 85% of the Fortune 100. Your first three videos are free at heygen.com/profitting. That's H E Y G E N dot com slash P R O F I T I N G. Heygen.com/profitting.

• 41:36Hala Taha?

  What's up, Yap fam? You guys know we love reading on this show, so I'm always excited when I find a book I genuinely think is worth sharing. Life at the Speed of Play: Launch Products People Love by Mark Pincus is one of those books. Mark is a legendary Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor, and this fast-paced 170-page book is his playbook for testing ideas. Quickly navigating uncertainty and figuring out what's actually worth pursuing. One of my favorite concepts is what he calls the abyss. Those moments when you feel stuck or unsure of what's next. Instead of fearing uncertainty, he shows you how to use it as a tool for discovery. Right now, Mark is doing a buy one, get one offer for Yap listeners.

• 42:20Hala Taha?

  Go to getmarksbook.com/ yap, buy one copy for $32 and get a second copy free. So you can keep one for yourself and give the second to a friend, future co-founder, or someone who needs a little push.

• 42:36Hala Taha?

  What's up Yap gang? I recently had Gary Vee on the podcast and he told me something that really stuck with me. If you've got sales DNA, you've got to be paying attention to live selling. Because it's one of the biggest opportunities right now online. And that really got me curious, so I checked out an app that he told me about called Whatnot. I jumped into a live show and I instantly got it. The seller was showing products in real time, answering questions in the chat, and building a real relationship with the buyers. It didn't feel like boring shopping. It felt like a community. Whatnot is the largest live shopping marketplace in the country. And for entrepreneurs, the results are really hard to ignore. Sellers on Whatnot can sell up to 10 times more than traditional marketplaces. And the number of sellers making over a million dollars a year on the platform has doubled.

• 43:20Hala Taha?

  So if you've got products to sell and you're looking for a new way to reach customers, search Whatnot, W H A T N O T, in the App Store. Download it and you can start selling right away. That's Whatnot in the App Store. Now, something that you mentioned is email lists. So my mind goes, okay, LTV is very important to her. And you mentioned like upsells and new products. So what are the KPIs that you're tracking? Like, what are the most important KPIs for you when it comes to what you sell?

• 43:50Speaker 01

  Absolutely. We're psycho about KPIs. It's everything. We watch our marketing data daily. And we're looking at our customer acquisition costs. We're looking at our conversion rates on our website. We're looking at new versus returning customers, what our lifetime value is, what our average order value. You know, and we're looking at our MRR, so our marketing efficiency ratio.

• 44:20Hala Taha?

  Oh, I never heard of that. What's that?

• 44:21Speaker 01

  That one's really important because it encompasses all of your marketing costs. So the challenge with ROAS, if you look at that single-handedly, is you may still be losing money. Your ROAS may look great, but if you're spending a ton on content or these platform fees, you actually may not be doing as well as you think. So MRR accounts for like our team, our marketing team. It accounts for all the platform costs, basically everything. If we're spending a dollar on marketing, it's being accounted for in that ratio. And we target a MRR of three and we adjust our spend based on that.

• 45:05Speaker 01

  So if that starts declining, then we reduce our spend. If it goes up, then we increase our spend.

• 45:11Hala Taha?

  So walk us through like an actual like example, like what does good look like for these KPIs? Take like maybe like one customer order and like break it down for us, like the cost of the order, how much it costs to get that customer, what you expect that customer to do in a lifetime. Like walk us through like what good looks like for a customer lifecycle for you.

• 45:31Speaker 01

  Yes. One thing I know for sure, lifetime value to your customer acquisition cost is a very important number to be monitoring. Our customer acquisition cost averages $50 and our 30-day lifetime value is 208. So that's a four to one ratio.

• 45:52Hala Taha?

  Wow.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  The industry standard is three to one, so we're above that, which is good.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  You want to make sure you're getting a return on your investment and that's one way to look at that. It is gonna be costly to acquire those brand new customers. That's the unfortunate reality, but as long as they're staying with you and you're getting that return from lifetime value, then it's okay to make that upfront investment. The other thing that's really important, you know, when you look at the unit economics, because shipping is so expensive for e-commerce, making sure your AOV is good, you know.

• 46:32Hala Taha?

  What's AOV?

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Your average order value. So, Urz hovers around 107. So that, you know, allows us to absorb those shipping costs, packing costs, fulfilling, and then also that customer acquisition cost. So depending on the time of year, we may actually be profitable with our first order or at a minimum break even, which is, you know, challenging to do.

• 46:59Hala Taha?

  It blows my mind that people are going online and buying a hundred dollars worth of vegan cheese or two hundred dollars in the first month you said.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:09Hala Taha?

  What kind of people are these? Like, describe your customer. I know you did before, but like, what need do they have for two hundred dollars worth of vegan cheese?

• 47:17Speaker 01

  So this is where things get really interesting. Dairy is actually addictive. It has an ingredient in there called casein, which is addicting. I know that sounds crazy. So when people are forced to give up cheese because of high cholesterol, or they had a heart attack, or they have a new allergy to it, they still want cheese.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  And, you know, that's where we come in and they will do anything for good cheese, I've found. They will drive 10 hours with a cooler and fill that cooler up. They will spend four hundred dollars, you know, for a special occasion on just cheese because they miss it and they crave it and they're yearning those experiences that they used to have around cheese. So that's, I didn't know this when I started Rebel Cheese. I've kind of learned this. Over the years.

• 48:10Hala Taha?

  That's really lucky. You got an addictive replacement.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:16Hala Taha?

  So that's really good. So seasonality was something else that was really interesting with your model. And I think a lot of CPG brands have seasonality. How do you like prepare, make the most out of those seasons? I'm sure you're like gearing up for them and trying your best to capitalize on everything. So like, what are the things that you do to prepare for that?

• 48:34Speaker 01

  We start planning six months, nine months out, depending on what's going on and, you know, our capacity. Quarter four is the most important time of year for us. So it's crucial, we're prepared. It's also important for our customers. They're celebrating with our cheese. We don't want to ruin those moments. Because they're special occasions, right? They're getting their family together, they're planning their family dinner around our products. So we need to execute and deliver on those moments. And there's a lot of moving parts.

• 49:15Speaker 01

  You know, we're dealing with outside shipping partners that may get delayed. And, you know, the last couple of years, the holidays fell right in the middle of the week, which meant we lost a lot of our shipping days during the main holidays. So we had to plan around that. So planning is crucial, having backup plans when things go awry, because they will. They always do, despite all of your best efforts, is really important when you're dealing with a seasonal business. Because you don't want to lose that revenue. Quarter four, you know, that's the bulk of our revenue. So we need to make sure we do everything we can to provide, you know, an amazing customer experience.

• 50:00Hala Taha?

  Now, I know you mentioned that every month it's kind of, you know, you're doing 20 million, you said, this year. Every month, you said it varies. You're making the most money in Q4. I have a couple of questions around that. The first is like, what is a good profit margin every month for you? Like, how much profit are you making every month?

• 50:15Speaker 01

  Right now, we're hovering around 61% profit margin.

• 50:18Hala Taha?

  Wow, that's really high, right? Like, compared to most businesses? I think my business is like 40%. 60%? That's really, really great. So what do you account that for? Why do you think you have such high profit margins when traditionally this industry has very low profit margins with the shipping? What are you doing differently?

• 50:36Speaker 01

  I honestly believe it's because we do everything ourselves. So we have, you know, full control of the end-to-end process. And when we see something is becoming expensive, we can do something about it. You know, when you don't have control, like, we don't have control over the shipping. You know, gas prices are fluctuating now, so that's going up. The solution to that would be, let's launch our own shipping. Obviously, that's not going to happen. But, you know, for the things that we can have control over, that's been a huge plus for us. Because we can pivot and make adjustments, you know, when we see prices going up.

• 51:15Hala Taha?

  Yeah. So you also mentioned that you're in grocery stores.

• 51:21Hala Taha?

  Which business model do you like better? Like, what's a better business model?

• 51:24Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh, e-commerce by far. And, you know, we just launched in Whole Foods.

• 51:28Hala Taha?

  Oh, congrats!

• 51:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, the California region. Retail is very, very challenging. It goes back to having control again. When those, when the products leave your building, you lose control. And there's so many things that can happen along the way. For example, we just had an order that shipped to the East Coast. It was supposed to take two days, and it took two weeks.

• 51:53Hala Taha?

  Oh, no.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  And then, you know, it's arriving late, and they're charging us back for that order. So they're saying it got here late. We're not going to accept it. And that product goes to waste. And there, you know, we lose thousands of dollars. And there's, you know, so many other things that can go wrong. You know, they leave it sitting outside too long. They don't store it correctly.

• 52:17Hala Taha?

  And then that's your brand reputation when people eat the bad cheese.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  Exactly. They don't display it, you know, well, or they put it in a bad spot in the store. You know, so you don't have as much control with retail. So the margins are a lot smaller. However, with that said, our customers want to see us in retail. It's the number two thing um searched for on our website. They go to a find near me um constantly. They're always looking, when are they going to be near us? They don't want to necessarily get perishables shipped to their door.

• 52:54Hala Taha?

  Got it. So like you don't want to do it. It's not better for your margins, but your customers are demanding it. Do you feel like it helps you with your branding and your trust as well?

• 53:04Speaker 01

  Yes, um, and here's why. For customers that have never tried us before and they're hesitant. They don't want to spend, you know, eighty dollars to get free shipping or twenty dollars on a wheel of cheese plus the twenty for shipping. You know, that's a huge commitment for something that you've never tried before. So it is good for them. They can go in their local grocery store, buy a wheel of cheese, give it a try and go, okay, I like this. I'm ready to commit to a larger purchase now.

• 53:35Hala Taha?

  That makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. This has been such an awesome first interview of how we profit. Like, I feel like we've just covered so much ground and I it's just been so interesting to learn, to be honest. Like, I'm blown away by like everything that you're teaching me because I have a totally different um agency and a network and totally different business. So it's so cool to kind of like pull back the curtain. Now, I I found out that you're actually a Yap listener.

• 54:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 54:02Hala Taha?

  So um I guess like, how do you learn as an entrepreneur? Uh, how did you find Yap? Like, just curious because I think it's really cool. One of the premises of this series is to actually interview other Yap listeners. I'm sure you listen to try to to try to grow your business. So how do you learn as an entrepreneur?

• 54:20Speaker 01

  Oh, I love podcasts. Um, actually, I'm going to Dallas tomorrow and I'm like so excited because I get to listen to six hours of podcasts.

• 54:28Hala Taha?

  I love that.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  It's a great way to listen to listen to learn um on the go because I'm always driving around or cooking or, you know, doing stuff in the kitchen. So I can have a podcast going and feel like um, you know, I'm being productive at the same. Time. I also enjoy newsletters. That's how I spend my free time because they're quick. I learn a lot. I can focus on what I'm interested in, which right now I I'm reading a lot about that and learning a lot about that. So it's yeah, most, most of my learning comes from those two things.

• 55:07Hala Taha?

  Yeah, I love that. Newsletters are really awesome because sometimes you'll find like the most expert people are writing a newsletter. Right? And they're not necessarily published in like newspapers or whatever. They're on Substack. Or you're just on their email list and they're sending you like really valuable information. So I agree newsletters are kind of like underrated. Everybody talks about podcasters, but not nearly, not usually newsletters. Okay, so let's talk tech and software. AI, I knew that one of the ways that you caught that big shipping mistake, that $400,000 shipping mistake was actually through AI that you built.

• 55:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:44Hala Taha?

  So talk to us about how you use AI in your business. Like, what are the ways that you use it today?

• 55:49Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, how much time do we have?

• 55:52Speaker 01

  Yes, so it all started with that shipping mistake. A couple of years ago, we had just completed our busy Q4. You know, we were heads down, focused on that and getting, you know, boxes out the door. And we come up for air in January, February, and we're like, why isn't there more money in the bank? We just had this super successful quarter. What's going on? So I started digging around and I realized we'd been overcharged on shipping by quarter million dollars. And that's not an overexaggeration. And I was like, oh, what am I going to do about this? So I turned to AI, I gave it all the data, I had it analyze it.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  And I was able to get most of that quarter million dollars back because of that. So I was hooked and sold. And I was also worried about the future. So I was like, okay, great. I got this money back, but now what do I do to make sure this doesn't happen again? Because it could very easily. So I turned to Vibe Code in and I created a tool using, you know, Manus and Claude and lovable different AI tools that are out there. And we use it all the time now. So every month, what this tool does, we upload our invoice for the week and we upload our contract.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  And it compares them side by side and it spits out any discrepancies that I can then take to a shipping partner. Saved another one hundred and fifty thousand dollars with that. And the overcharges have gone down over time because they know we're watching.

• 57:30Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 57:31Speaker 01

  So of course, now I use AI for everything.

• 57:36Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  Cash flow analysis. I just did that this past weekend. Yes, we have a finance team, but I wanted to get more granular. I wanted to do what ifs, you know, analysis and I could use AI for that. I use it. I'm doing a capital raise right now. I use it to manage my investor pipeline, to create the investor deck.

• 57:59Hala Taha?

  I love it.

• 58:00Speaker 01

  To do research on our investors before we meet with them, so we're not going in blind. I encourage my team to use AI, use AI. And I do trainings with them, um, so, you know, that we're all on the same page and getting the most out of it.

• 58:18Speaker 01

  So yeah, obviously you can't, you still need a human in the loop. You can't have it run your entire business, but where it makes sense, data analysis, um, you know, anything that's repetitious. Some of the more mundane things that maybe the team doesn't enjoy or you don't enjoy is great for that.

• 58:39Hala Taha?

  Yeah. Now, I know a lot of listeners are probably trying to figure out like what tools they actually want to use. For me, I'm constantly flipping between Claude and ChatGPT. I kind of use them for two different things. I've kind of liked ChatGPT more lately. Um, which is just so funny. It's like, seems like these tools will like start to suck and then get better and, uh, which tools do you love to use?

• 59:02Speaker 01

  I personally am a huge fan of Claude and. Part of the reason why is because I'm so deep in there now. I've built out all of these projects and skills.

• 59:13Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 59:13Speaker 01

  And I have all of these connections to, you know, Meta Ads and all of these different systems. But what I like to do is every now and then I'll compare them side by side. So I'll put the same prompt in chat, Claude, Manus. And you'll see what they come up with to test their strengths and weaknesses, to see what's changed. Is ChatGPT improving in an area I may not be aware of?

• 59:41Hala Taha?

  Yep.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  So doing the same thing in, you know, all the LLMs, I think is a good thing to do every now and then.

• 59:48Hala Taha?

  Yeah. So I know you said that you are raising another $20 million. You're not raising 20 million?

• 59:55Speaker 01

  Not 20 million.

• 59:56Hala Taha?

  Oh, okay. How much are you raising?

• 59:58Speaker 01

  We're raising 5 million.

• 1:00:00Hala Taha?

  You're raising 5 million?

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:01Hala Taha?

  Well, why raise so much money if you're 60% profitable and making money every month? Like, why do you think you need that money?

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  That's a great question. It goes back to shipping. That's one of the big reasons why we want to open our own fulfillment centers on the East and the West Coast. That will cut our shipping costs in half, which is significant. And it will help us mitigate some of the rising shipping costs with fuel going up. We also are heavily focused on innovation this year. We're creating a new cheese with vegan quinoa. So I mentioned the dairy quinoa earlier.

• 1:00:39Hala Taha?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  There are European companies that have created a vegan quinoa, which is a clean protein. And it's responsible for the stretch and melt-in cheese. It's like the missing piece of the puzzle. Yeah, we've been waiting for it for years. So we're going to be heavily focused on that this year. And we'll be able to create like a gooey camembert and a melty, stretchy mozzarella.

• 1:01:04Hala Taha?

  Ooh.

• 1:01:04Speaker 01

  So that's why. And we also, we're growing our retail as challenging as it is. In retail, it costs a lot of money to do that. So we want to make sure we can support that growth.

• 1:01:20Hala Taha?

  Now, this type of, this will be your first investment after Shark Tank.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:25Hala Taha?

  That must be such a different feeling because Shark Tank came with like all this promotion and branding and Mark Cuban stamp of approval, whereas this investment it's more money, which means more of your company, right? And potentially, and not all the exposure. So like, how are you thinking about it? Was it a big decision to make?

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  Yes, it's very important to us that whomever we partner with, we're aligned on values. We really don't want someone coming in and asking us to cut corners or jeopardize our product in any way. So we've been very picky about who we meet with. And there's actually some innovative ways to raise capital. We're doing what's called an SPV and our VIP customers are investing in that.

• 1:02:20Hala Taha?

  Can you explain what that is? What does that stand for?

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  It's a fund in which customers and angels can invest in.

• 1:02:28Hala Taha?

  Okay.

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  So it's really cool because you know, you're mission aligned. And, you know, we reached out to our customers to see if there was interest and hundreds of people responded.

• 1:02:39Hala Taha?

  Wow.

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  Blew us away. So we're doing that. And then we met with a syndicate today. So it's like another type of fund where we're going to pitch to like sports athletes and see if they're interested and invest in. So there are, there are all these creative ways. I didn't know about them until now to find mission aligned investors. You know, you don't have to just do the VC path.

• 1:03:10Hala Taha?

  Yeah, that's really, really interesting. Have you considered teaming up? I know you mentioned sports folks, but have you considered teaming up with like influencers who are in that like health space? Or who talk about not eating vegan influencers?

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  It's a good idea, but we haven't. I mean, maybe we should.

• 1:03:27Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:27Speaker 01

  Maybe we should go look at that.

• 1:03:29Hala Taha?

  So, so I know you're big on AI. One of the things that I'm finding with AI is that it's helped me not hire as much. And I find that like I'm more involved in finance now. I'm more involved in certain aspects of the business where in the past I didn't have the capacity to be involved. But now I'm really able to just like dive into the numbers and like basically have this like support system that helps me if I'm stuck or I don't know the words or what, you know, like how to navigate things. What does your leadership team look like? And do you think AI has helped you kind of keep a small leadership team?

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely. And funnily enough, most of our team, they were our friends, you know, we knew, well, they still are. But we knew them before Rebel Cheese. We have multiple couples that that work for us. Um, we're a couple too. My husband and I run in Rebel Cheese. I swear it's gonna get get us in trouble one of these days. We we have five couples, a family.

• 1:04:36Hala Taha?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  Yes, um, so it's very, it very much is a family office in the literal sense. Um, and it's been fine. It's been that way for years. Um, so we have our sales director, um, Kyle, you know, he was a friend and still is a friend. I don't know why I keep saying that before Rebel Cheese.

• 1:04:56Hala Taha?

  Yeah, but he was a friend and and then you hired him. So friend before work.

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Yes, and his husband works for us too as our chief technology officer. Um, so he helps us with Shopify, all the integrations, the shipping tools. Um, we have our customer service manager, um, our marketing creative director. She's been with us since day one. Our procurement manager, she started as our dishwasher when we opened. And she's now our procurement manager. So she she's been with us, you know, since day one, so nearly seven years. And her brother works with us and her daughter did at one point. Um, so we we like to have, you know, families working with us because we know them and friends.

• 1:05:43Speaker 01

  We know them and we trust them and they're mission aligned too, which is of course very important.

• 1:05:48Hala Taha?

  That that must be hard, though. It must be hard because mixing personal and business. Have you ever had to let go a friend? Or was somebody ever like not pulling their weight where you had to let them go?

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  Absolutely, and it is, it is challenging and it's something we're always cognizant of. And, um, you know, we're, we're getting away from, you know, hiring friends. So there's more balance.

• 1:06:12Hala Taha?

  Yeah, and boundaries.

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly, and boundaries as we grow. Um, but it hasn't been a huge issue, to be honest. I normally, we're very transparent, um, in our office about everything. So normally when that happens, they understand and, you know, there aren't any huge surprises, even if it is a friend. So they get it.

• 1:06:37Hala Taha?

  Okay, so talk to me about how you compensate yourself as a business owner, because I think there's so many different ways to do it. A lot of entrepreneurs like don't actually pay themselves for a long time. So in the beginning, how did you pay yourself? At what point did it change? How much do you own of your company? Yeah, talk to me.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  We didn't pay ourselves for years.

• 1:06:57Hala Taha?

  Really?

• 1:06:57Speaker 01

  Um, and, you know, that was very challenging. Um, because even though, you know, we're profitable, we have been reinvesting into the business for years now because we've been growing. So we had to, you know, build this factory that costs money. And then we had to add on to the factory. We needed to, um, add some automation and so on and so forth. Um, so for years, we didn't pay ourselves. We just kind of figured it out. Luckily, when you're working around the clock like we do, you don't really spend much money. So, um, it wasn't an issue. But you do need to pay yourself. If you want to do a raise at some point, or if you ever plan to have

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  a bank or an investor looking at your books, you have to pay yourself.

• 1:07:47Hala Taha?

  Really? I would think that they wouldn't, they'd be happy that you're not paying yourself. No, why?

• 1:07:51Speaker 01

  They flag that. So that's a red flag to them because it looks like you're trying to make the company look more profitable than it is if you don't pay yourself, which is, you know, that, that normally isn't the reason why. Normally founders aren't paying themselves, you know, because they want to pay their team more benefits or grow or whatever. It's only a million other reasons, but they frown on that, I learned. Um, so you have to pay yourself no matter what, in my opinion.

• 1:08:23Hala Taha?

  You're getting a salary, I'm assuming. Are you also getting distributions?

• 1:08:26Speaker 01

  No, not right now.

• 1:08:28Hala Taha?

  Just salary?

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Yes.

• 1:08:30Hala Taha?

  At what point are you like, I'm deserving of distributions? Or is it because you have investors that's like different? How does that work?

• 1:08:37Speaker 01

  This year, we're focused on, our primary goal is to get options for our team, especially the people that have been with us for a long time. So they're part owners too. So that's our priority before anything else. We want to make sure we're set up for that, you know, before we do the raise. And then the other stuff like distributions, we're going to worry about that later.

• 1:08:58Hala Taha?

  Yeah, I'd love to unpack that a bit. I know I'm like getting like so nerdy and so deep, but it's the stuff that you don't get to talk to other entrepreneurs often about, right? So how much, how much percentage of the company do you have versus Mark Cuban versus your husband?

• 1:09:12Speaker 01

  So we're majority owners, so we own 90% and Mark Cuban.

• 1:09:18Hala Taha?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:09:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, 10%. He's the only person on our cap table.

• 1:09:22Hala Taha?

  Okay, so 90% and 10%. You never gave equity to anybody else yet?

• 1:09:26Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:09:26Hala Taha?

  And how are you gonna, like, you mentioned options. So like, how are you structuring this equity to your employees?

• 1:09:33Speaker 01

  We're very excited about this. We've wanted to do this for a while. So they'll get some company shares, so they'll be part owners in the company. And we're going to do that, you know, for the employees that have been with us for a while. And that's a lot of them. So we're really excited to do this.

• 1:09:51Hala Taha?

  Is there like a certain percentage that you're like, okay, this 10% is for employees? Or something like that?

• 1:09:56Speaker 01

  We do have a percentage allocated, but it shifted. So I can't remember exactly what it is. I want to say it's like, it's like 5% for employees or something like that.

• 1:10:07Hala Taha?

  Okay.

• 1:10:08Speaker 01

  Um, yes, I don't remember exactly because it does get complicated when you break those shares down and you're, you know, you're making room for other cap raises.

• 1:10:18Hala Taha?

  Yep.

• 1:10:19Speaker 01

  Because that will shift the whole table.

• 1:10:21Hala Taha?

  Yeah, so how much are you going to give away to investors for this 5 million?

• 1:10:25Speaker 01

  Um, that's a great question. So we're doing it on a 40 million valuation. So, um, you know, 5 million, but.

• 1:10:36Speaker 01

  Some of that, this is where it gets complicated again, some of that's Mark because he's investing again and there's some other small offices. So it's really that whatever that percentage ends up breaking down to of the 40 million will be their percentage.

• 1:10:51Hala Taha?

  Man, you did really good. $750,000 to kickstart for only 10% of your business and that drove you to 20 million.

• 1:11:01Hala Taha?

  And you still own 90% of your business. It's incredible. It makes me feel like I've been giving out my equity willy nilly. I mean, I own like 90% of my company still, but I'll be at 85 because I give it to my early employees. I gave a lot of equity away. But it's interesting. It's really smart because I've had clients who've gotten kicked out of their own companies.

• 1:11:25Speaker 01

  Yes, that's terrifying.

• 1:11:26Hala Taha?

  And also I have friends that own so little in their companies, even though they work so hard, they need to get some massive exit in order to make any money out of the deal. And so like they get caught in this like cycle. So I think you've got to be really careful.

• 1:11:41Speaker 01

  You do. You know, it's challenging. I go back and forth on this all the time because, you know, we have made sacrifices to get to that point. You know, we had to work, we've had to work seven days a week since we've started, long hours, multiple roles, because we've been very careful about hiring to keep those costs down and stay profitable. If we had done a raise earlier, you know, we could have made those hires and maybe had, you know, a little bit more freedom.

• 1:12:13Speaker 01

  You know, so there's trade offs. You know, maybe we could have hired someone to build our factory instead of us doing it. I go back and forth on this all the time. So I definitely understand the desire to do raises earlier on. I get it. I can see the benefits of doing that, but it does come with some risks.

• 1:12:34Hala Taha?

  So you are a co-founder of a $20 million company. I hope that you are buying nice things for yourself. So what's the nicest thing that you've bought so far?

• 1:12:46Speaker 01

  Oh, well, I do love to receive stuff in the mail. I tell my husband it's market research. So I can see whatever e-comm companies are doing. So I'm trying to think. You know, I've been traveling a lot. I do love, um, there's a company called Petite Ave. Um, and I bought a coat for New York because I'm in New York a lot. Through there, it's sustainable and, you know, I'm petite, so I knew it would fit well. And it's high quality. So that was like a treat that I got for myself.

• 1:13:25Hala Taha?

  We're petite twins.

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:13:28Hala Taha?

  Love that.

• 1:13:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:29Hala Taha?

  Okay, last couple of questions is about general entrepreneurship. So what do you feel like is the thing that you love about being an entrepreneur? And what do you hate about being an entrepreneur?

• 1:13:42Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. I, I'm a control freak, so I love having full control. I don't think I could ever work for anyone again, to be quite honest. Um, I love creating and building and implementing new, you know, ideas. And that's, that's everything to me. Um, and when you work for someone else, even if they're an innovative company, you can still be restricted on, you know, how much you can do. Um, so I love that part. I love our team, you know, that we get to pick who we work with. And there's great synergy there, you know, because that's important. That's who you spend your days with.

• 1:14:26Speaker 01

  Um, and, you know, that I get to work with my husband every day. I wouldn't be able to do this without him. Um, there's no way.

• 1:14:35Speaker 01

  So there's that too. Um, in terms of what I hate, um, it can be really stressful and hard. I mean, there's definitely been moments, even with all of this success, where I've wondered, are we going to make it? Um, and, you know, I haven't been able to sleep and are we going to get through this? How much longer do we have? Um, I've, I've had many of those moments and they're hard. Uh, really some of the hardest, you know, moments I've had in my life. And, you know, because we're value mission-driven company, I was able to come out, you know, on the other side of those moments.

• 1:15:18Speaker 01

  If we started this for money, for material reasons only, I don't think I would have. You know, um, because they were just too hard to navigate for, for just money.

• 1:15:30Hala Taha?

  Now, uh, speaking of rainy days, how much money do you have saved in the bank for a rainy day? Or how much months runway are you keeping for a rainy day?

• 1:15:39Speaker 01

  Yes, so six months is a, you know, a rainy day runway, but I'm watching that constantly. And, you know, there's a lot of things that can impact that, like, you know, CapEx, building, you know, our new fulfillment center. If that ends up costing more, you don't know what can happen. Terrorists overnight. Um, so I'm watching our cash flow weekly. It's so important.

• 1:16:05Hala Taha?

  Six months is really good. I feel like a lot of people have three months. So six months is like going the extra mile. But to your point, you're really seasonal business. So it's like you kind of don't even know how much money you're gonna make until the end of the year. So is that why you you save six months?

• 1:16:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, seasonal. And then we always have, um, these projects we're doing where we're reinvesting in the business. And even though we plan for those, and my husband has a lot of construction experience, there still can be a lot of fluctuation there that can impact the bottom line. So that's the other reason why.

• 1:16:39Hala Taha?

  And how do you and your husband like divvy up responsibilities?

• 1:16:42Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. This is really important. If you work with your partner, um, it's important you have some lanes defined and you each stay in your lanes. Um, that's a hard and fast rule we have. Um, he's not allowed in my lane. I'm not allowed in his lane. Um, so I'm focused on R and D, quality, sales, um, marketing, those are my big things. And my husband Fred, he's focused on operations, production, those are his strengths. Um, you know, anything related to execution, he crushes that. And he also does some of the marketing and sales, too.

• 1:17:21Hala Taha?

  What part of entrepreneurship has like surprised you the most? Like, did you think that you were gonna be the co-founder of a $20 million company?

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  Never. I don't know why. I guess I never really sat down and thought about it. I'm very much a heads down kind of person. I just get In there, figure it out. And then occasionally I'll come up for air and be like, oh, wow. Yeah, I can't believe I'm here. Um, so I've never really thought about it. I've always dreamed. I'd always dreamed of starting my own business and being an entrepreneur ever since I was a little girl. Um, so I knew I would do that, but I didn't think about the specifics, like the size of the business or anything like that.

• 1:18:04Hala Taha?

  You know, on this podcast, I often interview like celebrities and influencers and and people who created like billion dollar companies. And they're super well known and they're really big personalities, which is why they're so well known. They put out books and you know. But here you are, like this extremely successful entrepreneur, so well spoken, was able to kind of like just like distill down all these things for us. We learned so much from you. What's your advice to the person out there who's listening, who wants to start a company? Who doesn't have a personal brand yet, who doesn't even want to be in front of the camera necessarily, but just has a really good idea. But has not, you know, typically been like the captain of the team or the president of any sort of club.

• 1:18:49Hala Taha?

  But which I feel like a lot of the entrepreneurs that we that I talk to are like those types. What advice do you have to that person?

• 1:18:57Speaker 01

  That's a great question. The things that I'm most proud of came out of nothing. So it came out of nothing and it came from putting myself out there. I'm, you know, I'm an introvert myself. I did not want to go on Shark Tank. I was terrified. You know, I thought I was gonna puke. I was so scared. But I did it anyways and I put myself out there and there have been tremendous rewards from that experience. So my advice would be put yourself out there. Just do it, even no matter what. Even if you think it's a bad idea, you don't really know if it's a bad idea until you put it out there.

• 1:19:39Speaker 01

  It could be brilliant. It could be the next thing that everyone's looking for. And if nothing else, you'll learn and then you can pivot from those learnings or build something else. But you know, unless you put yourself out there, you will never know. So, um, that's my key piece of advice is just take a step, get out there, execute, learn. And, you know, build from those learnings.

• 1:20:06Hala Taha?

  Have you ever, I'm sure people are approaching you now and telling you their ideas. What, how do you decipher from like a good idea, like you had a great idea of putting out vegan cheese when vegan cheese was not a thing?

• 1:20:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:18Hala Taha?

  How do you decipher between like a great idea and idea that you should shoot in the shed?

• 1:20:25Speaker 01

  Well, you know, again, it's like, there's so many ways with AI and you know, the, you know, e-commerce and all these platforms to get feedback. My advice would be, put it out there and see what the response is. Do you, you know, one way we test ideas, um, we'll put a picture of the product that we're dreaming up and we'll have a signup button and we'll see how many people sign up. If no one signs up, that means there's very little interest. So we're not going to invest our time in developing that product. If we get thousands of signups, we're like, okay, there's something there.

• 1:21:05Hala Taha?

  Hmm.

• 1:21:05Speaker 01

  We should develop this. So, you know, you could easily create a landing page with AI now. Um, to get that feedback, you could throw it up there or Shopify store.

• 1:21:16Hala Taha?

  Yep.

• 1:21:16Speaker 01

  And, you know, just do a mock-up and put it out there and see what happens. See if there's a response and if there's traffic. Um, I mean, that's all you really need to know.

• 1:21:27Hala Taha?

  Yeah. It's like, are you going to get initial traffic before you go invest a whole ton of money and raise money and do all these things, like see if you can just do it yourself with the resources that you have before you just go all in.

• 1:21:39Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:21:40Hala Taha?

  I love this.

• 1:21:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:41Hala Taha?

  This is such a great conversation.

• 1:21:43Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:21:45Hala Taha?

  What is your last piece of advice for any of the entrepreneurs tuning in who are, you know, thinking about starting a business? What's your last piece of advice that you want to part ways with?

• 1:21:57Speaker 01

  I guess do it.

• 1:21:59Hala Taha?

  Just do it.

• 1:21:59Speaker 01

  Just do it. I mean, that's why I started Rebel Cheese. I didn't want to get to, you know, sixty, seventy, eighty, whatever age and look back and have regrets. And, you know, wished that I left that job and started that business. Um, you know, to me, that would be the worst thing in the world. So if you're thinking about something or if you think you would have those regrets, you know, when you're older, then that's your cue that you need to get out there and do it.

• 1:22:34Hala Taha?

  And how did you prepare for entrepreneurship? Like, did you do it as a side hustle at first? Or did you just like, you know, you had a great job. So were you just able to quit and kind of just use whatever savings you had?

• 1:22:47Speaker 01

  We started developing the products before we launched Rebel Cheese. So that was kind of a side hustle and we were figuring things out. We did a couple pop ups. So we were able to get some feedback from our customers and see what the response was like. So we kind of started as a side hustle, but we did have very successful careers before this. And we lived way below our means. So that actually gave us the confidence to start this because we, you know, I see this quite a bit. Well, I used to when I worked in corporate, you know, people would max themselves out and would feel like they were stuck in their jobs.

• 1:23:28Hala Taha?

  Because of their lifestyle.

• 1:23:29Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:23:32Speaker 01

  So that's another piece of advice I would give. If you can live below your means, so you have some flexibility and freedom to start other businesses. It will give you the confidence to take that next step, which was the case with us. You know, when we moved to Austin, we lived above a garage and then we lived in a town home. And, you know, then our house is really small. So we always lived way, way below our means. So we had this freedom to try things like a business.

• 1:24:05Hala Taha?

  And what do you want out of Rebel Cheese? Like, you don't seem like somebody who's doing this for money, right?

• 1:24:11Speaker 01

  No, not at all.

• 1:24:12Hala Taha?

  You don't seem very flashy. I asked you, what do you like to buy? You didn't give me like a real comment, like clothes. And I was expecting like a jet or something, you know? So why are you doing this? Like, what's the outcome?

• 1:24:25Speaker 01

  To get, uh, that's a good question. Actually, I was gonna say to get our cheese in as many mouths as possible.

• 1:24:31Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:31Speaker 01

  But there's a bigger goal than that. And that is, it goes back to our original values and mission, which is to move the needle on animal welfare, um, or planet or health. And we know that it's unrealistic to expect everyone to go vegan overnight. It's not gonna happen. But if we could get people to eat our cheese, you know, one meal a week or one meal a month, the collective impact of that on the things I just mentioned is huge.

• 1:25:04Hala Taha?

  Hmm.

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  And that's why I do what I do.

• 1:25:07Hala Taha?

  I love it.

• 1:25:08Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 1:25:09Hala Taha?

  Kirsten, this was such an amazing interview. Thank you so much for joining us on Young and Profiting Podcast.

• 1:25:15Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:25:17Hala Taha?

  And that's how Kirsten Maitland and Rebel Cheese profit. Every business has a hidden engine, and today we learned that for a CPG, premium plant-based food brand, the real leverage is not just making a great product. It's about aligning to a mission that's bigger than money, being efficient with shipping costs and understanding your key KPIs like CAC, LTV, and MRR, leveraging technology like AI to catch mistakes that would usually take hundreds of hours or executive hires, and lastly, taking big swings like pitching your business on Shark Tank even when you're an introvert. This was an amazing first episode of How We Profit. Until next time, this is your host, Halataha.