Jonathan Wolfson (Brainiac Foods) - What nutrients have been missing for kids and how he’s changing it

The Consumer VC: Venture Capital I B2C Startups I Commerce | Early-Stage Investing I Brands - A podcast by Mike Gelb

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Our guest today is Jonathan Wolfson, who is a serial entrepreneur and founder of Brainiac Foods. Brainiac Foods produces brain-boosting snacks with the nutrients young minds need. We discuss his framework for founding a company and the origin story of Brainiac and what he thought was missing from the market and his approach to building product and new SKUs. Without further ado, here’s Jonathan. And there you have it. I hope you all enjoyed that. Before founding Brainiac, you’ve been a very successful serial entrepreneur. What’s your framework from brainstorming ideas to committing to found a new company? Why did you decide to found Brainiac? Very science-led that’s focused on what the brain is made of Would you allow your kid? Could they do adulting? Because Supply chain challenges have been pretty enormous What nutrients is the brain made of that are different to the rest of the body? How do you think about nutrition? There’s been lots of innovation within food to make snacks and meals healthier. What do you think was missing from the market? What were the first steps you took when founding Brainiac? What age demographic are you targeting and where brain food might be the most beneficial? How did you conduct market feedback since this seems like a new category requiring education for the consumer (parent)? What are the benefits of brain nutrition-oriented food? How did you approach your sales channel mix from the beginning? Did you start out as digitally native and then decide to move into retail? How do you approach new SKU development and product expansion? What was it like raising from VCs? What was their response?Investing in CPG products tends to be out of style with VCs. What do you think made Brainiac so interesting as a company? How do you think about competitive advantages for Brainiac vs new entrants? What’s so far been the biggest challenge when founding Brainiac? You’ve been successful both as a B2C founder and a B2B founder. What are some of the challenges when founding a B2C company? What’s one book that has inspired you personally and one book that has inspired you professionally?Free Solo Notebook and plan everything to a notebook What’s the best piece of advice that you’ve received? What’s one piece of advice for founders?