How This Founder Got Her Homemade Recipe Into Target & Thousands of Other Stores - Breezy Griffith, Founder of SkinnyDipped

This episode delves into the entrepreneurial journey of Breezy Griffith, who elevated her homemade snack, SkinnyDipped, from a small kitchen project to a major retail presence, including stores like Target.

1. Personal Loss as Motivation: Breezy used the loss of a close friend as a catalyst to reassess life priorities and launch her business.
2. Learning from Failure: Previous business failures taught her critical lessons in financial management and product development.
3. The Importance of Support: Family and close friends played crucial roles in both the founding and scaling of SkinnyDipped.
4. Persistence Pays Off: Securing a deal with Target was a game-changer, achieved through persistence and strategic partnerships.
5. Scaling Challenges: Transitioning from a home-based business to mass production involved learning to navigate manufacturing, supply chains, and quality control.

1. Introduction to Breezy Griffith

Breezy Griffith introduces her background and the foundational experiences that influenced her entrepreneurial spirit. She discusses her family’s emphasis on creativity and experiences over material wealth. Yasmin Nouri: "Welcome to the show, Breezy."

2. The Genesis of SkinnyDipped

The chapter outlines the inception of SkinnyDipped, born from a personal tragedy and a desire to work closely with family. It also touches on the initial challenges of product development. Breezy Griffith: "We wanted to create a snack that was healthy but still delicious."

3. Business Growth and Learning

This section delves into the lessons learned from early business ventures and the importance of understanding the market and financial sustainability. Breezy Griffith: "Every failure brought invaluable lessons that shaped our business strategy."

4. Securing Retail Success

Discussion on how SkinnyDipped managed to secure a pivotal retail deal with Target, highlighting the strategies and negotiations involved. Breezy Griffith: "Landing Target was not just about having a great product, but also showing them we could scale."

5. Reflections and Future Plans

Breezy reflects on her journey and discusses future plans for SkinnyDipped, emphasizing continuous learning and adaptation. Breezy Griffith: "It's about constantly adapting and being ready to take on new challenges."

1. Harness Personal Passions: Convert personal interests and passions into business ideas.
2. Learn from Every Experience: Both successes and failures provide valuable lessons.
3. Build a Supportive Network: Involve family and friends who can offer different perspectives and support.
4. Be Persistent: Persistence in networking and negotiations can lead to significant business opportunities.
5. Focus on Quality: Ensure your product stands out by emphasizing quality and value.

Breezy Griffith is the founder and CEO of SkinnyDipped, a good-for-you snack company looking to reinvent some of our favorite snacks.

Breezy launched SkinnyDipped in 2016 with her mother after losing their dear friend to cancer. This life-altering event made them take a hard look at their own priorities and how they wanted to make an impact in this world. As a tight-knit family, they wanted to spend more time together and ultimately decided to start a business. They decided to revolutionize the snacking industry and launched with their thinly-dipped chocolate-covered almonds, and now they have expanded to multiple product lines from chocolates to peanut butter cups.

Breezy went from selling nuts out of their backpacks to securing a presence in over 25,000 retail doors, including major outlets like Target, Walmart, Kroger, Publix, Starbucks, airports, and more. They also recently closed a Series A round and have investors like David Grutman, Amy Schumer, and Mark Wahlberg to name a few.

In this week’s episode, Breezy talks to us her unconventional career path after college from starting businesses like a sorbet company where she would sell at farmers markets to then creating pastries & hustling to make ends meet living in New York. She shares why those businesses didn’t work but why they were the best experience for her when it came to understanding financials and creating sustainable business models. She then walks us through SkinnyDipped’s origin story, what she was doing to create and produce the product in the early days from her kitchen to then finding manufacturers and why she believes being scrappy helped the company grow brand awareness. She shares what it’s like to have her mom and also two best friends as co-founders, how they were able to fund the business in the early days, how she secured a deal with Target very early on, and so much more.

People

Breezy Griffith, Yasmin Nouri

Companies

SkinnyDipped

Books

None

Guest Name(s):

None

Content Warnings:

None

Yasmin Nori

Hey everyone, I'm Yasmin Nori and you're listening to the behind her Empire podcast. I'm on a mission to showcase successful, self made women who share honest stories and lessons of what it really takes to create the life you want and build your own empire. If you've been listening to the show, you know, just like you, I've been on my own personal journey to build my empire. I started my business via to help women tackle their period problems and hormonal imbalances using a natural whole food supplement approach. If you're suffering from bad cramps, irregular periods, fatigue, bloating, stay tuned because a little bit later in the podcast, I'll share a bit more about my company via, but for now, let's jump into today's episode.

I want to welcome this week's guest, Breezy Griffith to our show today. Breezy is the founder and CEO of Skinny Dipped, a good for you snack company looking to reinvent some of our favorite snacks. Breezy launched Skinny dipped in 2016. Teen with her mother after losing their dear friend to cancer. This life altering event made them take a hard look at their own priorities and how they truly wanted to make an impact in this world.

As a tight knit family, they knew they wanted to spend time together, and through that, they ultimately decided to start a business together. They decided to revolutionize the snacking industry and launch with their thinly dipped chocolate covered almonds. And now they've expanded to multiple product lines like chocolates to peanut butter cups and more. Breezy went from selling nuts out of her backpack to securing a presence in over 25,000 retail doors, including major outlets like Target, Walmart, Kroger, Publix, Starbucks and more. They also recently closed a series A round and have investors like David Grutman, Amy Schumer and Mark Wahlberg, to name a few.

In this week's episode, Breezy talks to us about her very unconventional career path after college, from starting businesses like a sorbet company where she would sell it at farmers markets, to then creating pastries and hustling to make ends meet. Living in New York City, she shares why those businesses didn't work, but why they were the best experience for her, especially when it came to understanding financials and what it took to create sustainable business models. She then walks us through Skinny Dip's origin story, what she was doing to create and produce the products in the early days from her kitchen to then finding manufacturers, and why she believes being scrappy helped the company grow their brand awareness. She shares what it's like to have her mom and also two best friends as co founders, how they were able to fund the business in the early days, and how she secured a deal with Target very early on. Breezy shares so many gems in this episode, especially after running the company for over a decade.

There's so much for us to learn from her. Welcome to the show, Breezy. I am so excited that you're here. I know we were chatting for a few minutes before the interview, and I was just sharing how much I love the authenticity, the scrappiness, like, the real hustle that you share about your journey building skinny dip, because I'm like, that resonates with me. We got to highlight more of women like you who are building from scratch and just being real about it.

So I'm super pumped about this interview, and I'm so excited that you're here. So thank you. Before we go into your story, I'm super curious about your upbringing. What would you say would maybe be the earliest childhood memory that you have that helped define the woman that you are today? It's a great question.

Breezy Griffith

So I think probably for me, it's less so a single memory and more so a lot to do with my childhood and upbringing as a whole. I grew up in a family with parents that really kind of encouraged, for one, they would always value experiences over things. So that was how I grew up my whole life. My parents, we didn't drive nice cars. Instead, they would take us to places far away and interesting, and we would get to experience other cultures and kind of a lot of adventuring.

And I think also my parents really encouraged imagination and creativity. So I grew up in the era before all the screens that existed today and was forced to be bored. And I think out of boredom came imagination. And that really has served me well because, you know, it's part of where, you know, my ability to kind of imagine and create and dream things up really came from. And I really grew up in a family that, I mean, honestly, my childhood was just magical.

I spent a lot of time outdoors, a lot of time experiencing new things. And so I think that also helped to make me less afraid to take risk, which obviously is a huge part of being an entrepreneur, because I always say it's, like, pretty much a string of risk taking nonstop. Yep, exactly. I love that. And I think it's so fascinating because even your life before skinny dip, like, I look at women like you, I'm like, man, that's so fun.

Yasmin Nori

Like, you had so many different lives, you tried so many businesses, you worked at so many different jobs. I'm like, that is so cool, because I was that person that I was very creative as a kid, similar to you, and entrepreneurial. And then I kind of fell in the path of what you should be doing. You know, I studied finance, went into banking. Then I was like, oh, everybody's in tech, let me join that.

Like, I followed what I should be doing until later in my life. So I look at you and I'm like, this is so amazing. So maybe you can share with our audience some of these interesting jobs that you had out of college. Yeah. So I don't think I really ever had, quote, a normal job, but I also don't think that I realized that I had unique small entrepreneurial ventures in place of a job.

Breezy Griffith

It was just natural for me. It's where I gravitated. It felt like the right fit. So really, from, honestly, from the earliest days through to, you know, to starting skinny dipped, I just had a bunch of different kind of small entrepreneurial ventures. And when I say small, I mean really small.

I had a teeny tiny sorbet company when I was living in Miami, and I would rent a, you know, a kitchen at the only time I could afford to, which was like, from midnight to 04:00 in the morning, I had a single ice cream maker. I would, you know, make these little itty bitty pints of ice cream, pack it up and sell it at the farmer's market. And obviously it was not going to be a scalable business, but I had a bunch of, like, different experiences like that, that where I think what I was doing was kind of filling my tool chest with all these different tools and experiences and failures, lots of failures. And so I don't know if it was so much a conscious decision as it was just a subconscious decision for me that that's where I felt most at home when I could be doing something that, you know, was entrepreneurial and, to be fair, amazing that you have all experience in finance and business. I didn't have that, so.

But also meant that I had to learn that through failing and, you know, whereas I think some people can learn that through school or an MBA program. For me, it was like real world experience. I still had to learn it. I didn't magically have those skills. Those were things that I had to essentially, you know, build over time.

Yasmin Nori

Yeah. And I'm sure there's so many learnings in these, like, little ventures that you did. You know, you mentioned some of these failures. Are there maybe one or two that you remember like, really stood out to you. You talk about a sorbet business.

I think you also were, like, moving to New York and selling pastries. Like, what were some of the failures that you learned? Because so much comes out of that that I'm sure ultimately set you up for, obviously, what you're doing today. Oh, yeah. I mean, I also had, when I was living in Miami, I would make these super delicious sandwiches, and I would deliver them to local cafes, and they would always sell out.

Breezy Griffith

And then I would make more in the afternoon and I would deliver more. But I was going at the time to a regular grocery store, buying all these great ingredients and making these amazing sandwiches. Well, as you can imagine, and anybody with a business background would have told you probably, I wasn't making any money. I definitely wasn't. In fact, I was paying a lot of money to make sandwiches all day.

But I didn't go into it through kind of that business lens. I went through it from a different angle of like, hey, what can I do or build? And then I tried to figure it out on the back end. So obviously, that was not a scalable business. I was, you know, bleeding money making sandwiches.

But through that experience, I learned. I learned, oh, wow, it matters how much your ingredients cost. Where can I source those ingredients from that are, you know, more affordable? And so that was just, you know, one more experience for me to kind of file away for later. So, you know, and that helped me, for example, when I went off to New York and I started kind of a custom pastry, and I would make these custom little mini cakes and cookies and everything, and I would deliver them for kids birthdays.

And at that point, I realized, wow, I can't. I can't go to the regular grocery store and buy all these ingredients. I need to buy them from a wholesaler if I want to be able to make money. And so it was bit by bit that I just started to build that skill set. You know, it seems like you were hustling and you were then thinking about money.

Yasmin Nori

Living in New York is not cheap. Did you have other odd jobs to pay the bills, or you were like, I'm going to make this work because I have to sustain this life that I have here. Yeah. So I'm a huge believer. It was part of my upbringing in hard work.

Breezy Griffith

In fact, I think it's impossible to be a successful entrepreneur without having a work ethic. So for me, it was always a combination of kind of, you know, hustling and building a business. And then I worked in the service industry to supplement that a lot. When I was younger, sometimes I had a couple businesses that were, you know, going on. Maybe one was more of a passion project, and I was losing money, but I believed in it.

And the other one was helping to pay the bills, had a tremendous amount of support, not only my family, but friends. I ended up in New York, moving in with my best friend, who's now our co founder. I lived in their extra room, you know, and that's part of how we were able to make the business happen. So I think you have to make sacrifices like that as an entrepreneur. Yeah.

Yasmin Nori

And I love what you said about hard work because I think even, like, looking at my life, the biggest themes, probably too much. I'm trying to, like, have a little bit more balance is I have no problem working. I need to, like, chill a little bit sometimes because I can just keep going. Especially what's so interesting, when it's your own business, there's, like, no stopping because you're passionate, you're always thinking about it, and. And I think it's so interesting you say that that was also your superpower, because it's like, whatever you want to do in life, when you work hard, it gives you that confidence that you can actually do it.

You're like, oh, I've done it before. Maybe you quote unquote failed. Right? But, you know, oh, I launched, for example, a sorbet business. People liked it.

I just, you know, you decided to take a different path because it wasn't scalable. So I think building that muscle in whatever you can do that I can get something off the ground just by working hard is just a huge confidence booster in, like, whatever you want to do. So I love hearing that you kind of leaned on that, and you clearly were hustling quite a bit. So you're in New York, you know, you're selling these custom pastries. Tell us more about how your life transitioned to starting skinny dip.

Breezy Griffith

So I was living in New York, as you do, having the time of my life in my mid twenties, and I come from a really close family, grew up in Seattle. My sister's my best friend, so we're nine years apart. So at the time, she was 16, and her best friend was, or really close friend was diagnosed with terminal cancer. His name was Josh, so, and he was 17 at the time. So I made the decision to essentially start coming back from New York to Seattle to support my family, my sister and Josh and his family, as best I could.

And our whole family kind of rallied around him during the last year of his life. He passed away just after his 18th birthday. And it just changed you. It can't not change you. And it makes you wake up and think about things maybe in a way that you hadn't before and reprioritize certain things in your life.

And in particular, there was kind of. This was a time in my life and my mom's life where we were both looking for something meaningful. We were ready to kind of sink our teeth into something. And so that's when we really put our heads together and we decided, hey, let's start something together. And, you know, we have this really kind of unique but complementary skill set.

We knew we wanted to be in food because we have such a deep love for food. Our family is huge food family for us. It brings people together. We are definitely eating breakfast, talking about lunch, and maybe also dinner. And so that's kind of the, you know, the genesis.

And so I ended up making the decision to come back from New York to Seattle and start skinny dipped with my mom. Hey, everyone, it's Yasmin here in 2020. I was struggling with some debilitating health stuff. I just got off birth control, and suddenly I had acne, mood swings, breast tenderness, and really painful periods. I tried so many things, but the one thing that worked was something called seed cycling.

Yasmin Nori

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And now let's get back to today's episode. And I'm so sorry to hear about, you know, the passing of this close friend, family friend of yours. There's nothing like something like that happening to your point, to realize, like, we live this quick, short life. Like, what are you doing that is fulfilling yourself? Like, you never know how many days you have.

So I could really imagine that being, like, a transformative experience. And, you know, you moving back and wanting to do something with your mom, I love that you're in business with your mom. I started my business with my sister in law. And so you guys are thinking, all right, we love food. We love to work together.

So many people reach out to me, and they're like, I don't know what that exact idea is, but I have this burning desire to start a business. So how did you guys come up with chocolate dipped almonds? It's so specific. So what? Where did that come from?

Did you try a few different things? Like, where did the final one land? Oh, yeah. We went through iterations of. In fact, it wasn't always like a snack.

Breezy Griffith

We actually started thinking, so my mom had been a television producer for public television, and so we originally thought, maybe there's a cooking show that we do. Turns out I am not talented or gifted when it comes to being on camera, so that was not going to happen. Oh, I disagree. You're great. It is just.

It just was not my calling. And we realized that, you know, we kind of sat back and said, okay, well, we want to do something that's really true to us, that fills a need of kind of something that was, like, missing for us in the way that we ate every day. And when we started skinny dipped, there weren't as many disruptor brands as there are now. It was earlier in kind of these, you know, disruptor brand time period. So we quickly realized we talked a lot about ingredients and different snacks, and where we landed was essentially, we loved to snack.

We felt like snacks can be. Food can be both healthy and nutritious. We felt like nuts are something that we would both eat daily, regularly, all the time. And we both loved chocolate. But chocolate almonds had been.

Had become this candy. It was really this dated product that was sitting in big plastic bulk bins in the store, you know, and we would never buy that, but we felt like, oh, wow, chocolate. Quality chocolate and quality nuts are this, like, incredible marriage. How can we reimagine those into a perfect snack that you could kind of eat any time of day? And so that's really kind of where it started.

And then, I mean, this was born on the dining room table, hand dipping nuts on forks, trying every chocolate that we could possibly get our hands on, every variety of almond, until we created what we thought was kind of the perfect prototype that, again, felt like something we could eat mid morning, mid afternoon, and was really clean and something we felt proud to put out for anyone. We always say, even now, if we would not put it on our table for friends and family, you will never see it under a brand name. And that's like a north star for us. I love that. And I, you know, kind of dealing with food in my own business, it's so easy to not make things healthy.

Yasmin Nori

It's more cost effective. It's easier to do. So. I know it sounds very simple, but I know the behind scenes of getting, like, a good quality product out is more complicated than, like, the consumer might realize. So I totally respect that.

But, yeah, so you come up with this idea. I love that you were saying you were literally making it from your kitchen. Like, that's so approachable. Tell me more about those early days, like, creating the product. You know, how long were you in your kitchen, and how were you hustling and getting the word out there?

Oh, yeah. I mean, looking back now, the early days were just so much fun, right? Because you wear every hat in the business, and there's so many things to work out, and it's just. It's a time that requires so much problem solving and so much kind of like hands on work. I loved it.

Breezy Griffith

So, I mean, for us, this was like, we did not have a professional food background, so we had to even once we'd created something in our home kitchen that we loved and we sampled out to friends and family, we felt like, okay, we have something that people would want to buy, then we had to figure out, well, okay, we're making, you know, we sure, we can dip, you know, one pound of chocolate covered almonds, but, like, how do you make this in a commercial setting? And that was, you know, a number of years before, you know, a couple years before we, you know, kind of. We trialed a bunch of different methods to figure out, okay, you know, who can we work with that can help us to bring this to a commercial setting? How do we make sure that we maintain the artisan qualities of the product as we look to manufacture it on a larger, on a larger scale? So that it took us a, you know, really about two years to develop the product.

The first package we made with, like, the help of an intern. Then we have our two co founders, who joined Chrissy and Lizzie. We all decided, hey, if we're going to make this happen, we need to commit 100%. We moved in, all of us with my parents, including dogs, and we lived under one roof for, you know, the next few years. While the four of us were, you know, we were the marketing department, sales, customer service, operations, finance.

Scary on the finance front. And that meant, you know, part of our day was renting a commercial kitchen and roasting off 100 pounds of almonds. And the afternoon was spent selling door to door with, you know, these little packages that we had in the back of the car. And in the evenings, we would go and demo in grocery stores where we had been able to get placement. So really, we did everything.

Yasmin Nori

I can't remember what interview it was, but, like, one of your co founders, like, snuck into Google and convinced the chef to sell the cookies like that. I love that. Is that what happened, Chrissy? Really? And she still does stuff like that.

Breezy Griffith

She's incredible. She will not take no for an answer. And I think the harder that is for her, the more she gets fueled by that. So. Yeah, but.

But you have to do that as an entrepreneur, because that's what entrepreneurship, in my mind, by definition, is, right? You're doing something. You're forging a path that previously didn't exist, or you're doing it differently. It's like you got to create that space or think outside the box, because what you're doing has not been done before. So I love that she has that mindset, and obviously, you as well.

Yasmin Nori

So I'm curious. You started this business with your mom, and then you brought in, you mentioned two of your best friends. So a couple of questions there. Why did you bring them in? Like, what was the timing?

Did something shift in the business where you're like, shoot, we need help. We need more people involved. Why did you decide to bring in your friends? And how have you made it work with family and friends? My mom and I had kind of created this, call it prototype product, but it didn't exist, and we weren't selling it anywhere.

Breezy Griffith

We were still making it out of the home kitchen. And I think one thing we've been good at is really being aware of kind of like, our own skillset, and then where do we lack skillset or experience? And we felt like, you know, my two best friends, Chrissy and Lizzie, had really different but complementary skill sets to ours. For example, Chrissy is like, you know, just, she is an incredible, incredible when it comes to sales. And we needed that.

We knew we would need that. So. And Lizzie has this kind of innate ability to connect with people. And so we felt like there was this natural fit between the four of us. Honestly, I would say, like, we break.

I feel like at skinny dip, we break every rule that is the don't work with friends and family and all of this. And for us, I'm not saying it would be everyone's experience, but for us, it's actually been, I think, part of the magic to the brand we all remain. I mean, I couldn't be closer with my family. In fact, it's not just my mom now, but my sister really is, you know, running a large part of our marketing. Her partner does all of our branding.

Chrissy, Lizzie, we couldn't be closer. We all have the utmost kind of mutual respect for what each person brings, and we have been able to maintain those relationships. We also said from the beginning, especially my mom and I, you know, we said that no matter what, we would not allow business to be, to come between our relationships. And that was like a heart, a firm line that we drew in the sand and said, that's not worth it. So if we're ever there, we need to check in and figure out what to do, because it's not worth our relationship.

And that is something that we've just always held true to. I love that. Yeah, it is interesting because some people are in the camp of, like, don't start a business with your friends or family. And some people are like, it works. And I.

Yasmin Nori

I've had mixed experiences. I, you know, after I kind of did my own thing, I joined my dad with a small business he had. I brought in my brother, and then my sister started working. So it was, like, truly a family business. And I really enjoyed it.

I learned quite a bit. The industry was something I wasn't passionate about, so I knew it wasn't something I'd stay in, like, long term. But one thing that I learned from there was there was a few of us who had, like, similar skill sets. So it kind of was like, we're all good at a few things. Like, there only can be so many, like, CEO types.

And, you know, once I kind of, like, grew and found my voice and my passions, you know, I was like, all right, there's. There needs to be something else for me. And now I started a business with my sister in law in an industry that I'm passionate about, about. So, no, no shame to my family. They're still all working together, doing great.

Yeah. And what's so awesome, similar to what you said about me and my sister in law, is, like, we have completely different skill sets. So, like, it's like one plus one equals five, right? Especially when you have that work ethic, too, and the trust with someone. It's, to your point, there's so much magic that can happen.

So I love that. You also mentioned, like, you guys all have different skill sets and hit in different ways. So I can imagine that being super powerful and you trust each other. Like, starting a business is like, I don't know, marrying someone, maybe even more, because you're literally talking to them, like, every second of the day. So we spend all of our time, and I think trust is a huge piece of it.

Breezy Griffith

I also think that my hat is off to solo entrepreneurs. I think entrepreneurship already is very challenging. My experience has been that I'm so grateful to have had partners in it because it's inevitable that it's a rollercoaster ride, right? It's like a series of high highs and low lows. It's, you know, times where you just think, oh, we're never going to make it.

And there's times when, you know, it just feels like the biggest celebration ever. And I'm just so grateful that I've had people there, whether it's to help, you know, lift each other up or to help celebrate. So for me, that has been, I think, critical to also not completely burning out because entrepreneurs are, you know, right. It's burnout is a huge, is a huge piece of, you know, of what the toll can be. And I know, you know, partners and sharing it with my mom and my best friends has been instrumental in helping to, you know, prevent that.

Yasmin Nori

Yeah, I love that. It's so true. And people always said, like, entrepreneurship is so lonely, and I never really understood. I mean, you get that, but obviously now being in it, it's like you're doing something that a lot of people might not understand, and you can't share certain things with your team. So having, you know, partners is so key because they really get the behind the scenes or, you know, if you don't have that, having a community of, you know, founders or just family, like, any kind of support is so important.

And you've now been doing this how skinny dipped is like nine years. How long has it been? Yeah. So it's really been eight, eight, almost nine years since we kind of came up with the idea to start a business. We made our first sale in 2016.

Breezy Griffith

And I will say that, you know, that's. I feel like we live right now in the era of instant gratification and where the expectation is that you can become a successful entrepreneur overnight or build a successful business. And that's just not the reality. It takes time. And that's probably been one of the hardest things.

You know, I'm someone who struggles with patience, and that's probably been one of the hardest things for me is realizing that it doesn't happen overnight. You have to chip away at it. It's like five steps forward and three steps back. And I think that is kind of, that's just. We don't see that side of it through social media and everything.

All we see right now is the success. Right. Or everybody's so successful when they start a business, and, oh, my gosh, it happened so quickly. But I don't actually think that's most people's experience who are successful entrepreneurs or build or build, you know, businesses to scale. You know, it's so funny.

Yasmin Nori

The other day, this might be a good or bad quality. I forget hard moments, like, the next day. So that's probably why I'm still in the game. Like, I will have a full blown breakdown, but I honestly don't even remember something happened yesterday or two days ago, and I haven't been feeling 100% well. So maybe this added to it, but I just, like, started crying, and I just felt, for some reason, so much pressure.

Like, usually on 90% of the time, I can sustain it. And I feel like. I feel good, I'm excited. But there's some moments, like every maybe two to three months, where I just feel the pressure of the business, and I create stories. Like, it's all on me, the weights on me.

I know that's not the case, but you have those moments. And I just started crying, doing my thing, and I remember thinking to myself, man, like, do other people go through this of, like, those moments? Like, am I the only one crying? So it's just so timely. But, like, do you ever deal with that?

Breezy Griffith

Oh, I've had some of the ugliest breakdowns that, you know, you could ever imagine, because it's. There is an immense amount of pressure. And I think that also, like, in my case, and I think it sounds like, similar to you, too, especially when you have a lot at stake. Right. You know, for me, I have years and years, not just of my hard work, but my mom, my family, my best friends, people in the business now that, you know, have been with us for years that could have taken other jobs, but instead they're here.

So I. There's a responsibility for that to me, feels like it goes. It extends far beyond myself. Right. And so I think that pressure absolutely builds up and, like, I'm also very similar to you and that I think that I can take a lot of, like, pain and suffering, and then I choose to just kind of erase it from my mind.

And that's how I, like you keep going. Right. But eventually, it comes to a head, and I think we're all human. And that's where having partners for me has been so important and having such a support system through my family, because sometimes you need people to help you pick up the pieces, and no one can really understand what you're going through with besides those that are closest to you, because you're right. It can be very lonely at times.

Right. There can be things happening in the business that maybe you can't share with all of your employees because it will create a sense of uncertainty or fear. And so instead, you just internalize all of that. Mm hmm. Totally.

Yasmin Nori

And you're showing up, like, obviously being a leader. Like, everything's great when, like, there's a fire that's happening behind the scenes. So it's. It's so fun. And it's interesting because I feel like so much of business, or a large part of it is what you mentioned earlier is, like, staying in the game, knowing it takes time to build something amazing.

Because if you're able to do it and not burn out, like, that's already so much of the success because it. It's mentally very taxing as well. Like, you need to make sure that your mental health is in check along the way, or else it's just going to be a brutal ride. So I think so much of it is making sure you're not burnout, creating those systems of people for that longevity. So I love that you mentioned that.

So going back to the business, when did you realize, like, oh, this is actually, like, there's something here, this could be big? When was that? What was that moment in the business? So for me, from the beginning, because that's just how my mind works. I just decide I'm a dreamer to an extent.

Breezy Griffith

Right. So I think I went into this, you know, with this vision that we could become a legacy brand. And so I actually think that even though, you know, there's a lot more steps to it than maybe what I initially thought that was really important because it was kind of, it fueled me. And so I guess I think, like, just from the beginning, I felt like we were creating something, and we did have the intent from the beginning to create product. As I said earlier, that was artisan by nature.

That felt like something that you would have made in the home kitchen, but something that could be accessible and available to the mass market and could help to change, you know, even if it was just a little bit to help to better people's lives, diets, what they, you know, put in their body so I think from the very beginning, even though, you know, we always say, right. Oh, you know, it started with such a, you know, a single nut, what could be coined as a really small idea. I think both my mom and I felt like it was, you know, this single nut that really actually could be something much larger. I love that, having that, like, big vision very early on, and I know, as well, pretty early, you guys got in front and in target. So how in the world did that happen?

Yasmin Nori

How did you get in front of them and kind of secure that opportunity? Yeah. So target was one of our earliest, like, national retailers, and that kind of changed everything in the business for us early on. It was a combination of us really just trying to get the buyer to pay attention to us. We did hire a broker who helped to get us in front of target, and at the time, we had a target buyer who absolutely loved our product, and she became a huge advocate for us, and we saw the opportunity and went, this is, you know, this is a game changer for us.

Breezy Griffith

How do we make sure that we don't screw this up? You know, and to your point earlier about, you know, sometimes having to put a facade on that everything's fine, you know, I'll never forget sitting in front of the buyer, and she looked at us and said, you know, breezy, do you have any supply chain concerns? And I was like, nope, just well oiled machine. And, like, meanwhile, yes, we had every supply chain concern that you could possibly have. And so.

But, you know, we just looked at her death in the eye and said, no problem, and knew that we would have to grow up very, very quickly if we wanted to be successful. What was your mom's reaction? Like? Was she like. Because I know, at least for my mom, she's a little bit more conservative.

Yasmin Nori

Like, no, no, no. Like, we need to make sure everything's like, you know. Right. So was she kind of thinking like that, or is she similar to you? Like, oh, no, it's all good.

We'll figure it out. Yeah. So, this is where my mom and I are. Great team. I am 100% jet fuel, and my mom is the very important emergency break at times.

Breezy Griffith

So I think she was sweating sitting next to me and with probably her heart racing. But she is also a believer, and she is very much so. Again, back to that kind of how I grew up in childhood. She is very much of the mindset that where there's a will, there's a way, and that if you put your mind to it, we could figure it out. I'm not sure.

She was super excited about the timeline in which we agreed to, but again, that's the balance. My mom is very mindful, very thoughtful, and I'm jet fuel. So for us together, it's kind of created this perfect marriage of personality and skills. I could totally relate to that. And so going back to target, you get this, you guys went national with them.

Yasmin Nori

Is that the first? That's like incredible. And I believe time you had, twelve weeks or how long did you have? Just about going into the holidays. Oh, going into the holidays.

So how did you find? Because I know it's not easy behind the scenes. You know, you mentioned early on, like the focus when you found a co packer of keeping the artisan aspect and you think, like, putting the chocolate on an almond is straightforward, but I know it's not. So how did you navigate that in that twelve weeks to find someone? I mean, it first started with calling every co packer and contract manufacturer that we could find, pleading with them, explaining to them, hey, we had a national retailer where they take a chance on us even though we didn't have the volume to support their minimum orders, quantities.

Breezy Griffith

Once we found one, it was also just time in the plant. We're very hands on. We spent time training the people that would be making our product. It's been an amazing experience for both myself and I know for my mom to just experience, you know, sometimes we're so, we get so separated from the supply chain in terms of where things come from, how they're produced. And I just have to say I have the utmost respect for everyone that works in a manufacturing plant.

It is really, really hard work and it was a window for us into that world too. And building really strong relationships with our manufacturers and our suppliers and also showing that, you know, that we could show up and we could pack product on the line too. And we cared. So we did a lot of hand holding at the beginning. It did not go down without its challenges.

We had a truckloads of almonds that got delivered that were not as fresh. We are sticklers for quality, I mean, mega sticklers. And we had truckloads of almonds that got delivered to us that just weren't up to our standards. They just tasted honestly kind of old. And we were like, this is not the product that we're going to put on the market.

It wasn't a food safety concern, but wasn't true to us and our commitment to quality. And I mean, I called every single almond supplier, manufacturer, anyone we could think of to essentially replace this supply with something fresh, and eventually you figured it out. But it was the week of Thanksgiving. We had, you know, six weeks until we had to deliver to target. And again, I think that it's just like sink or swim, right?

At that point, no one else is going to fix it for you. Those early days, like, there's just no one else. So you either figure it out or you don't. Yeah. And, you know, kind of being in that position where you have no choice really makes you figure it out.

Yasmin Nori

Right? Like, when you're literally stuck in that. And I've been in a similar situation, but I'm curious, like, what did it? How did you guys even find out that those almonds weren't, you know, tasting as fresh? Well, so it's because we were very involved in the manufacturing process.

Breezy Griffith

We still are. So just every batch that we make, we get overnighted to us. And either myself, my mom, or somebody who's really close to the product in our team will try everything. I cannot believe I do not have an almond allergy. By now, it completely mystifies me.

I've probably eaten, like, thousands and thousands of pounds of them. But in this actual. In this scenario, I was actually had boarded a plane to fly to meet a potential investor in Denver. My mom was at the manufacturing plant overseeing production. The minute I landed, I had a million calls from her, and she was like, we have a problem.

She was like, these nuts. There's something wrong with them. They're not good. I bought a ticket. I re boarded the plane that flew directly back from Denver, back to Seattle.

I went straight to the plant, and my mom, I'll just never forget what she looked like. We walked in, and she just was like a ghost sitting there. And she'd had. There was probably like two or 300 almonds that she'd bitten in half in this little conference room trying to look at what was going on. Why did they not taste right?

And she just looks so defeated. So at that point, we were like, oh, shit, you know, we need to solve this. So that's when we went into. And for me, and that's probably where my skills, that's my strongest skill set is, solving problems under pressure. So that's where I thrive, so.

And I just kind of feel like the bigger the challenge, the more motivated I am to solve it. And in this case, I most certainly was not going to be the one to call target back and say, oh, my gosh. Sorry, target, we can't deliver to you. Oh, my. I can't even imagine you know, we, that happened once to us.

Yasmin Nori

My product is made from seeds. So not almonds, but, like, you know, similar vein. And to your point, like, we're also big on freshness. And there was one batch, and I remember, again, I was very hands on at manufacturing. I was also there testing everything.

And they're taking out this batch. And I'm like, something doesn't smell right. Like, that's how close I was. Like, I'm like, thank God I was there, right? And now we have all these protocols of, like, to your point, tasting it and whatnot.

They weren't bad seeds. They just didn't meet the quality and the taste that we wanted. And I remember thinking, man, like, we've, you know, especially early on, like, we were also self funded back then. It's like I had to make the decision that we are scrapping this entire load, sesame seeds, and just not going to use it. And, you know, we figured it out.

I called, like, hundreds of suppliers. I was like, I'll freaking even go to whole foods. Like, I just need to figure it out. Like, I don't even know what ended up happening. I think I ended up overnighting.

I found a brand that was able to help us. But, yeah, it's those moments that you're just like, oh, shit, like, we can't produce this. We can't use it. And then you just, you know, make it work. But then you learn protocols and systems in place.

And I think also to your original point, like, when you're the founder and you're hands on, like, people respect that. Like, I have done majority of the jobs in the company, and we're still small. It's not like we're massive. So it's good to know. Like, even in our fulfillment center, like, when I first went there to set it up, she's like, oh, like, you're asking, like, really good questions.

I'm like, yeah, because I was shipping hundreds from my house, you know, so it's good. It's all good learnings along the way, I guess. You don't have to, but in my experience, doing all those jobs makes you, for one, you learn so much about your own business and how it functions and what works and what doesn't work. I mean, yeah, I don't know how many shipments we've sent and, you know, nuts we've coated in chocolate and roasted and packaged and driven on trucks and things we've cleaned and I mean, just honestly, everything. So it makes you understand your business.

Breezy Griffith

It also gives you respect for, you know, it cultivates respect for kind of all the role that people start to play as you grow your team. And to your point, too, about, you know, you sounds like, you know, you guys made the same decision we made, which was probably, your seeds were perfectly fine to eat, but they didn't taste good. Right. And so we always say, like, do the right thing when, no, when no one's looking. We just also really live by that.

And I think that's served us well, too. And that, you know, that that's, that's something we share with our whole team. Right. And because I think your consumer, you know, obviously your consumers know the difference. And it's just, it's like you really want to be proud of what you put out into the world 100%.

Yasmin Nori

It's like an extension of us at that point. So it's so important. You know, one thing you mentioned earlier on the interview, you were saying how you love the early days because you were so hands on, right? Like, you have every single hat. There's a lot of pros and cons there.

But, but I'm curious, like, obviously you guys are nine years in. You're a significantly bigger company. Like, how has your role shifted and changed to the phase you're in now? Buy a crystal ball and could look at, you know, in the early days and see that I was spending all this time in kind of finance and investor world. I would probably not recognize myself also, because when I started this business, I didn't even have excel on my computer, nor did I know what a p and l was or budget or anything.

Breezy Griffith

That is all been just really learned because I've had to. So I think that in the early days, it really is, like, very hands on in a literal sense, too, right? Like, you know, we were self distributing and driving places all over the city, and we were doing demos and all of this. And everything is new and exciting and fun. And as the business evolves and gets, you know, to the stage that we're at now, it's different.

You no longer have a speedboat, right, where you can, like, turn and change directions really quickly, and you can still be nimble, but you have to be more thoughtful. You have to, at times, be able to slow down for a second. You have other people, you know, again, who are working with you that, you know, you need to take into consideration, kind of, you know, what's important to them. How do I build a team? How do I make sure that people really enjoy working here?

How do I cultivate the right culture? You know, how do I make sure that the culture that we have, as, you know, family feels like it is shared amongst our team. And so really, my time now has been building team, building culture, working on the investor side, kind of more of the finance side, and then probably still I kind of pop in and out of where we have fire. I should call them, like, fire drills, you know, and those pop up, obviously, throughout the business. It's just a part of building something.

It is not linear at all. It's just things happen, but so it's different, I guess I just think it's, like a constant. For me, it has been a constant vertical learning curve. Like, every time that the business goes through kind of a new phase of growth or evolution, you have to learn a new skill set. Yeah, it's so true.

Yasmin Nori

It's like business is always going to push you to level up. That's why you have to be so comfortable with being uncomfortable, because you might have, like, a month where you're like, yeah, the business is good. Everyone's happy. We're, like, killing it. And then, like, it goes into another phase in, like, the most beautiful way.

You, like, grow and there's growing pains, and you're like, all right, I gotta, like, mix it up. Like, how do I level up myself? And there's new things you need to learn. So it's like, there's never a long window of just peace, and, like, it's always gonna push you to become different and better and learn more, always. And there's always things I can't tell you.

Breezy Griffith

We've had multiple times in the business where we're like, oh, my gosh, I don't think we can pay payroll. How do we pay payroll? What are we going to do? It's not like it's been, you know, just all so great. We've, you know, rapidly grown, and we've seen all this growth.

Like, there's just. There's been real serious challenges, like, I think every growing business faces. And you just have to have this kind of really deep seated belief that you can make it. For me, that's, like, never gone away. It's just like smoldering fire.

It's like somewhere deep in my belly that just makes me feel like, you know what? Somehow we're gonna figure it out. Yes. A lot of lessons learned. I love that.

Yasmin Nori

And I think what you said about you have the conviction that you're gonna make it work either way. Having that sounds so simple, but having that is so key. And even, like, the other day, I felt, you know, I think it was that same breakdown I was talking about maybe two days ago, and I had a few podcasts and I remember, or my husband had brought up once, he's like, well, why don't you just stop the podcast? And again, this is what I do. Like, it's a big passion of mine to get women in business.

I've been doing it weekly for three years. And I looked at him, I was like, absolutely not. Like, I will be on my deathbed doing this podcast. Like, you know, I don't have the, I mean, I'm figuring out the right schedule to make it work as my business continues to grow. But it's like having that fire of like, no, I'm not going to drop this or in the business.

Like, we are going to make it work. Like, no one's going to mess with the business. We're going to, like, figure it out. Having that conviction comes from, like, you genuinely being passionate about what you're doing, or else you're not going to weather those storms as easily, I think. But I want to go back to, you know, you mentioned you're spending a lot of time with investors right now, so can you kind of walk us through how you thought about fundraising from the early days to, you know, I know recently you guys also closed a twelve, I believe, $12 million round, which is incredible.

And I think also, like, Shakira invested in you guys a few years ago. But, yeah, if you can walk us through your capital raising journey and how you've thought about it over the years. Yeah, well, first of all, I'll start by saying that I think it can be really intimidating, and especially for women. We all know the horrible facts that are out there, right? Like, less than 2% of venture funding goes to women founded businesses.

Breezy Griffith

It's totally effed up. We have to change that, like 2020, you know, I mean, this is just, it's just crazy. So I didn't know anything about investment. I didn't know anything about fundraising. I just knew that I didn't come from a, you know, a wealthy family or, you know, we, we had a little bit of seed money that we put into the business, but not the kind of capital that we would need to grow the business that we felt like we had the opportunity to.

So we started out by raising, essentially a friends and family round, and I called up a bunch of people that we knew and said, hey, any interest in investing? And we would take checks as small as $2,500 and really anything. And that round was really made up of early believers in the brand, friends and family, as well as, in our case, an investor who came on board pretty early, kind of by chance, because he ended up trying the product. And when I tell you it was in a Ziploc bag, it was not in a, you know, was not packaged. And so that kind of put us into a slightly different situation because all of a sudden, we had a more experienced investor in earlier.

And then over time, you know, food and beverage is really expensive to build. Tremendous amount of inventory you need. There's just a lot of costs associated with us with it. So that money actually didn't last us very long, and we ended up raising money from this investor. His name's Rohan.

Their fund called Kavu Ventures. So we were. And Kavu became our really big partner. Now, again, you know, I didn't. I had no banking experience or, you know, venture fund experience, so I had to learn very quickly how to raise money from venture capital money.

And at a pretty early stage in the business, to be honest. Now, the route that we went isn't the only route to go. You can build rounds with angels and, you know, and friends and family. There's ways to leverage, you know, debt at the right time. And, of course, again, this has been a, you know, a learned skill set for me.

And then the. The really fun thing has been, over the years, we've realized that we have these, like, super fans that we've cultivated some ways, at times not even knowing it, that, you know, we've been messaging on Instagram. And so this last round for us was, oh, it was a crazy amount of work, but it was so much fun. So we raised the money from 60 plus investors. Everyone is a genuine lover of the brand from David Grutman, who is an entrepreneur in Miami.

He's built his own really successful hospitality business. He's a huge food lover to post Malone, to Amy Schumer, to Tan France, who's been a super fan and a huge supporter for a long time. So that was a lot of fun to be able to pull together. And that'll be now the companies, you know, we're gonna be profitable this year. So it's also really fun to be able to take those dollars and instead of use them to support the daily operations of the business, we get to invest in sales and marketing.

Yasmin Nori

Oh, my gosh. That's amazing. I did not know. And how did you. So you mentioned, like, you were.

They were just super fans. Like, how did you get in front of them? Like, was it a lead investor who had the contacts? And they happened to be customers. So they're like, please bring me in.

Like, how did all of that kind of come together? Yeah, so David Grutman led the round. And essentially it's just kind of by, like, we got intros. You know, you get, you talk to one person and somebody's like, hey, so and so also loves the brand. Can I connect you with them?

Breezy Griffith

Great. And it's this incredible snowball effect. Right? And the beginning is always the hardest because you have to get a certain amount of traction. But once you have enough commitments, then, you know, people get really excited and, you know, we had, we were posting, you know, really great kind of financial results at the same time.

And if also, you know, we make delicious food, right? So we always wanted to make sure that if we got connected with somebody and in the off chance they hadn't tried our product or something, we're like, listen, like, we have to get you the product because if you don't love what we're doing, then it doesn't make any sense. You know, we are, we are a food brand. You know, I always would share with people, like, you know, what our philosophy is and how we do business to make sure that it's a match because, you know, you made this point earlier. You're getting just like, you're getting married to your partners and co founders.

You're getting married to your investors, too. No, that's so key. And it's so interesting. And I love this about, like, you being in business for, you know, nine plus years is like, you don't, you never know who's using and loving your product. Like, there are these silent customers.

Yasmin Nori

Like, even for us, we've had a few celebrity, like, mentions or write about. I'm like, what? How did she even, you know, you just have no clue. So I can only imagine, like, every day putting good products out there for years. Like, it creates this cult following.

So that's so fun to kind of see the type of people interested. And I know we're coming up on time, but one thing I want to make sure we talk about also is how you guys have shifted your name and branding. I think a lot of people in the early days focus, and this is just my personal opinion, focused too much on, like, getting the name right and the branding beautiful when it's like, let's just focus on creating a good product and selling. At least that was our philosophy. But I know you guys have also kind of shifted and rebranded.

But if you look back nine years ago, like, it was a very different way. So how have you transitioned? What was your old name? And, you know, I would love to just hear a backstory on all that. Yeah.

Breezy Griffith

So we initially launched with the name Wild Things. It's still the company umbrella name, but we pretty quickly pivoted to skinny dipped as our brand name. And the reason is that we felt like it was. It said something about our product. Right.

We put this thin layer of chocolate on nuts, on peanut butter cups now. And so. And just important note for us, those words we never use skinny on its own. Where women found a business were extremely aware of diet culture. Skinny dipped is a descriptor for us.

It comes as, you know, those words are always joined together in some way. We also liked that it was a wink at skinny dipping, which for us. Felt like, oh, my gosh, I didn't think about that. Yes, of course. But it just feels like a great reflection of who we are as a brand.

Right. There's this sense of kind of empowerment and this liberating feeling that you get when you go skinny dipping. So we felt like there was this kind of cheeky wink that felt natural. And so I would say, I mean, we. We have most definitely gone through several package packaging iterations.

I mean, the early days, our package looks nothing like it does now. Then we developed, you know, we branded the package that is, had become kind of iconic for us, which has this beautiful picture of the product itself and bright colors. And most recently, we just did a brand refresh, and we worked really hard. That was led by our walker Howard, who's our internal kind of lead designer, along with some agency help. But we really tried to take all the parts of the package that we knew people loved and then inject a little bit of.

A little bit of fresh energy into it. But I would say, yes, I know that there are many entrepreneurs out there that spend. It can be really expensive to redo packaging, and you can drive yourself mad. And I would say there's a balance between, between having a package that can sit on shelf, but to your point, if it doesn't taste good, no one's going to rebuy it, right? So I think getting your product right, getting your positioning right, is just really, really critical.

And being able to tell your story, that's actually, has been a challenge for us. I think we actually almost looked too branded at the beginning because people thought that we were. Even now people think we're like a big, giant company. And when you tell our story, they're like, oh, my gosh, we have no idea. And I think it's because maybe we didn't have that classic, quote, natural food company look.

And so while that's meant we've been able to be really successful in the mass market at a kind of early stage, it did make it difficult to tell kind of our founder story alongside. Yeah, I actually, until this podcast, I didn't know too much about you and your mom and your sister, your best friends. Like, I didn't know the story, and I was like, oh, this is amazing. I'm so excited to have her on. So I'm glad you're continuing to share the story and, you know, just ending it.

Yasmin Nori

On this note, what's next for you? What are you excited about? It could be personal or in the business, but what's kind of getting you excited in your mind? Yeah, I think, I mean, this has probably been the most exciting time in the business since when we started. We went through a really difficult 18 months.

Breezy Griffith

Would not have been able to do it without the team that we have. We had to respond to the macro environment. Going from, you know, kind of grow at all costs to profitability really matters. And that took our entire team's focus to respond to that change in the environment. It was very, very trying.

18 months, and now we're in an awesome spot. So I'm really excited that we get to focus on what I think we do best, which is innovation. We have a ton of exciting innovation coming out. We know that our consumer is looking for products from us that go beyond, you know, just the chocolate category, that push further into snacking. So we have a line of salty and sweet nuts coming out that launch this summer, and we've got a line of nut butters that will launch later in the year.

And so that's really fun. On the personal side, I'm eight months pregnant with my first kids. So I've always joked that if many nut babies, this will be my first human baby, but very excited. And then I would also say the other big thing for us is we launched our give back program in tandem with Forest Whitaker's foundation, called the Whitaker Peace and Development Initiative. We are supporting.

We've made a commitment of $400,000 to support women through entrepreneurship schools in the South Sudan. Yeah. And that is something that we want to continue to grow. So we're really committed to supporting women both domestically here in the US and abroad and through entrepreneurship as much as we can. I love it.

Yasmin Nori

I'm so inspired. I'll have to stay in touch with you, but I love everything you're doing. I'm so excited. Well, thank you for doing this podcast. Eight months pregnant, you're rocking it.

You couldn't even tell. But thank you for joining us. Breezy, this was so much fun. Thank you so much. This has been such a delight to chat with you.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of behind her empire. If you enjoyed this conversation, it would mean the world to me. If you would consider leaving a review or even sharing this episode with someone who might be inspired to create their own empire. To stay updated on new episodes or join our private community, visit behindherempire.com to sign up up. We send inspiring and short emails every week to your inbox.

I'll see you next week. And until then, remember, you're always in. Charge of your own destiny, and it's never too late to start your own empire.

Charge of your own destiny, and it's never too late to start your own empire.

Charge of your own destiny, and it's never too late to start your own empire.