#88 Undaunted Leadership with Hint Founder Kara Goldin

Today’s episode is really special - Kara Goldin, the founder of Hint, agreed to come on the show to talk about leadership! Kara founded Hint in 2005 and the company is best known for being the first unsweetened flavored water with no preservatives on the market. She scaled Hint to over 30,000 retail locations and over 150 employees, including growing Hint 40% during 2020. Kara has been named one of InStyle’s Badass 50, Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs, EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year 2017 Northern California, and in 2021 Hint was named one of Inc.’s Best-Led Companies in America. She’s also been featured on How I Built This (a great interview that I recommend), and her book “Undaunted” has been a WSJ and Amazon best seller. And actually, due to some technical difficulties, my time with Kara was cut a bit short, so I’ve included at the end of the episode a bit of a “book club” where I share some of my favorite pieces from Kara’s book, which I highly recommend.

Listen in as Kara shares about:

• Leading during tough times and her mindset
• Stories from leading during the pandemic and how Hint grew 40% during 2020
• How Hint expanded business with Costco, Sam’s Club, Walmart, and Aldi during the pandemic
• The early days of growing Hint and leveling up as a leader and how lack of industry experience can be an advantage
• Communicating effectively and with transparency, especially during uncertainty, and how follow up is critical
• Managing Employee growth and development as a leader
• And more!

Promomash/Crisp Links:

• Try Promomash + Crisp free for 30 days here
• Webinar recording: Promomash + Crisp Present: The Next Big Thing in WFM Demo Analytics
• Webinar recording: Distributor Data 101: 5 Things Brands Should Be Tracking and Why

Social Nature Links:

• Social Nature website
• Social Nature team email: marketing@socialnature.com
• Learn from & get to know the Social Nature team: 
  • Episode #87 How Natural Shoppers are Responding to Inflation with Social Nature's Jessica Malach
  • Episode #50 The Data Behind the Modern Wellness Consumer with Social Nature's Jessica Malach
  • Overview of Digital Sampling with Social Nature founder Annalea Krebs
• Episodes that mention Social Nature campaigns: 
  • Episode #66 Sharing is Caring: How Alison Cayne & Haven's Kitchen share cooking confidence and industry knowledge (Social Nature discussed at 41:15)
  • Episode #86 From Target Buyer to Nationally Launching Upcycled Pet Brand Shameless Pets with James Bello (Social Nature discussed at 37:33)

Show Links:

• Join the Startup CPG Slack community (12K+ members and growing!)
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• Visit host Jessi's Linkedin or website
• Questions or comments about the episode? Email Jessi at podcast@startupcpg.com
• Episode music by Super Fantastics