Today’s guests are active members of the Startup CPG community and were a crowd favorite Backpack Brand at Startup CPG’s Expo West Alley Rally! Hannah and Behzad Varamini are the co-founders of Tend, the first snackable, real food prenatal. They are reinventing multivitamins, replacing synthetic, hard-to-stomach pills and gummies with superior real food supplements for every stage of life - beginning with pregnancy. I loved getting to hear more about their story and am so excited for you to hear about their journey so far.

Listen in as Hannah and Behzad shares about:

• The process of founding Tend and how Hannah’s prenatal pill experience paired with Behzad’s PhD background to create a new product
• How they went from kitchen science project to commercialization and branding
• Their experience with accelerators including SKU and the Target Forward Founders Accelerator
• How they use qualitative and quantitative consumer data
• Their Expo West experiences and tips and what it was like to be a Backpack Brand at the Alley Rally
• The experience of being married and co-founders
• What’s next for Tend
• And more!

Get your ticket to the Expo East Mic Drop party for a chance to win a spot on the podcast: https://tinyurl.com/4nafz284

This episode was sponsored by Graphite Financial. Go to graphitefinancial.com/cpg
This episode was sponsored by Settle. Go to https://www.settle.com/startupcpg

Episode Links:

• Tend’s website
• Hannah’s LinkedIn
• Behzad’s LinkedIn

Mic Drop Party at Expo East Giveaway:

• Enter the giveaway to win a spot on this podcast and The Dish by buying your ticket to the Mic Drop party in Philadelphia on September 21, 2023 here
• Note: Giveaway only available to CPG brands and must be present at party in-person to win. If you already bought a ticket, you’ve automatically been entered!

Graphite Financial Links

• Graphite Financial website
• Download a free financial model template, chart of accounts template, and more here
• Listen to our episode with Graphite founder, Paul Bianco, episode #96 here.

Settle Links:

• Settle website
• Find out your Settle financing power here

Show Links:

• Join the Startup CPG Slack community (14K+ members and growing!)
• Follow @startupcpg
• Visit host Jessi Freitag's Linkedin or website
• Questions or comments about the episode? Email Jessi at podcast@startupcpg.com
• Episode music by Super Fantastics