Discovering a New and Delicious Way to Eat Beans with Maddy Hasulak Founder of Love Grown

Sep 6, 2018

Ask episode

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

Maddy Hasulak is the founder of Love Grown, established in 2009. Love Grown has a mission to make cereals healthier, their tagline is, “Beans for breakfast.” Their cereals are made with a blend of navy, lentil and garbanzo beans with flavors such as Chocolate and Strawberry Power O’s. In addition to cereals for kids and adults, they also have ancient grain granola and regular granola. They can be found in thousands of stores across in the US such as Sprouts, Kroger, Whole Foods, Safeway, Natural Grocer, and many more.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[1:25] Jeremy introduces his guest, Maddy Hasulak.
[2:30] Maddy talks about the first product she attempted to create.
[4:00] Overcoming the growing pains of a new business.
[7:15] What were the early days of Love Grown like?
[11:30] Maddy opens up about the evolution of production.
[15:00] What were the first new products that Maddy rolled out?
[18:15] How did Maddy come up with the idea to make cereal out of beans?
[21:30] Maddy talks about Love Grown getting featured on Good Morning America.
[23:00] Facing marketing challenges and successes.
[26:45] Heartfelt feedback from parents.
[28:15] Maddy talks about discontinued products.
[30:30] Why it’s so difficult to get a food-based startup off of the ground.
[32:45] What led Maddy to form a board of advisors for Love Grown?
[34:20] Key hires that Maddy made early on.
[36:00] Why Maddy focuses on sales and marketing.
[39:00] What has allowed Maddy to successfully market her product to retailers?
[40:20] Maddy talks about the ecommerce angle for her brand.
[41:40] What was the process of acquiring the Love Grown domain name?
[43:40] Maddy shares a low point faced along the way.
[45:15] Proud moments on the journey.

In this episode…

When was the last time you had sweet beans for breakfast? Usually, when someone thinks of sweet beans, they think of baked beans at a cookout, not for breakfast in the morning! On this episode of Inspired Insider, you’ll hear from innovator and entrepreneur, Maddy Hasulak. In her conversation with Jeremy, Maddy opens up about her mission to help people eat beans, why she chose to build a business in the food sector, challenges her business has faced along the way, what it was like for Love Grown to be featured on Good Morning America, and so much more! Make sure you take the time to listen to this engaging and fascinating episode featuring Maddy and Love Grown!

When you go into business as a startup you’ve got to be prepared to go the distance. Too often men and women get fired up and ready to bring their brilliant idea to the marketplace unprepared for the rollercoaster ride that awaits them. Thankfully, leaders like Maddy Hasulak are open and transparent about the struggles and challenges that await the average entrepreneur so others can learn from their victories and their missteps. Maddy’s journey with Love Grown hasn’t been an easy one by any means but through it all, she’s convinced that the opportunity to bring a solid product that improves the lives of her customers has been worth the struggle.

Have you ever wanted to make such an impact on the lives of people around you that you went to the drawing board to find a solution? Where has innovation and creativity led you on your journey? For Maddy Hasulak, this drive to improve the lives of people in her community led her to develop a breakfast product made out of beans. Boring cooked beans wouldn’t do the trick, Maddy wanted to take a familiar breakfast staple like cereal and granola and replace the usual suspects of corn and wheat with more nutrient-dense components like beans. Maddy’s experiment paid off and Love Grown has gone on to produce a whole line of healthy breakfast options that help the average consumer improve their diet.

Did you know that listening to your customer is one of the smartest business decisions you could ever make? It’s true! Many business leaders look back at the early days of their startups lamenting the fact that they didn’t take the time to pay attention to what their average customer wanted to see on store shelves. Thankfully, Maddy Hasulak and her team at Love Grown pivoted from some lackluster products early on in their run and moved toward the type of offerings that their customer base was looking for. What can you learn from Maddy’s experience? Where does your business need to pivot?

Let’s face it, most small business owner daydream of the moment when they can finally afford to hire key individuals to grow their fledgling team. When that moment arrives, what should they look for? Which position should they fill first? Really, what it all comes down to is playing to your strengths. Maddy Hasulak knew that it was in her organization’s best interest for her to focus as much of her energy as possible on sales and marketing. Due to this realization, Maddy built a team to take care of the tasks that would free up her time and focus on what would grow the organization. Make sure you have the right people on your team for the right reasons!

Resources Mentioned on this episode

Sponsor for this episode

Brand Driver helps ecommerce brands grow online sales and help you to protect your brand. I did a demo and loved how the dashboard is featured visibility so you can see all your reviews and questions that you may have scattered across amazon that need answering but they are on one screen. Go to www.Branddriver.com to find out more!

******************************************************************

Rise25 creates 100% outsourced VIP days for software companies and conference organizers to serve their highest level customers.

Rise25 VIP Days have a proven track record of helping companies to get more referrals, increase retention with their VIP customers, and get more engaged new customers without adding extra work to that company’s plate.

Rise25 partners and collaborates with entrepreneur-focused communities, with particular emphasis on creating events for high volume Amazon sellers, Walmart sellers, multichannel ecommerce sellers, and founders who want to take their business to the next level.

Rise25 has hosted VIP events in cities such as Austin, Chicago, Santa Barbara, San Diego, New York, Sonoma, and Las Vegas to name a few.

If your company appreciates the value of bringing your highest level customers together to connect and collaborate, you can learn more and contact us to find out if your company qualifies at Rise25.com.

Rise25 was cofounded by Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran.