95 - This Is Huge: How To Take On Billion Dollar Companies When You're Small (Jen Zeszut, Co-Founder and CEO at Goodles)

TL;DR

If you love mac n' cheese and you haven't tried Goodles yet then you're in for a wild ride. Seriously, just had them this weekend and my tummy is happy and my body is thanking me.

I invited Jen Zeszut, co-founder and CEO at Goodles, onto the show and we talked about how their small startup has grown so much, so fast.

Prior to Goodles, Jen was CEO at Cerebelly (baby food for healthy brain development). Prior to that she was co-founder and CRO at Beckon (SaaS, raised $44M).

Goodles was founded in 2021 (!), based out of Santa Cruz (CA) and has 24 people. Seed funding ($6.4M). Goodles is noodles, gooder. PROTEIN-PACKED, VEGGIE-BOOSTED mac n' cheese. Yum.

Here's what we hit on:

This is cool because Wonder Woman’s Gal Gadot co-launched with you - why did you decide to bring her on the team? What were the results? How's it going;

Why a celebrity is not the brand;

How do you organize your marketing budget (HINT: we have "big noodles" or big rocks launching monthly);

What marketing channels are you leaning into;

Why you started the Make, Be and Do Gooder Community and how's it going;

What content are you leaning into;

Having a celebrity partner is like having a megaphone;

How we measure what marketing content is working (HINT: we’re pretty meticulous measurers and turn things on and off in a staggered way);

What paid ads creative seems to be working the best for you (HINT: our ads are weird like the 3D rendering of cheese dripping);

Why knowing "what is your soul" (why you do what you do) is so important for startups;

What are your top marketing challenges;

What are the last 1-2 really good, creative marketing ideas you’ve come up with (HINT: we're a lifestyle brand so we're selling all sorts of fun things like a stuffie and we just had a stuffie drop which was our biggest sales day other than launch day);

Some goals you want to accomplish (personal, professional) in 2022 (HINT: it’s not the focus on the outcome. Do great work with great people that you love working with. I’m bringing personal joy to my every day and we are laughing and joking and having a fun time. I feel like I can taste the joy in this food.)

You can reach Jen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenzeszut/

Find out more about Goodles: https://www.goodles.com/

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You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!