Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/0d7481e0662404d0

Shop right is probably one of the hardest operationally
retailers to work with.
everything that could go wrong.
was going wrong. We were literally
Hammeraging.
Cash.
for this customer from spoils to
The sledding fees.
And finally I was like this is not working like
This retailer could sink the entire operation.
from a cash flow perspective. So what did you do?
We pulled out.
You pulled out.
We pulled out.
And I mean
They pretty much said, You'll never you'll never sell at our store again.

Welcome to How I Built This.
A show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements.
they built.
I'm Guy Raz and on the show today how Coel Tomei discovered a delicious
Passion fruit yogurt in an Australian beach town became obsessed with bringing it to the US.
And built Nusa into a major yogurt brand.
Coelle Tomei, like a lot of the founders on this show, was an accidental entrepreneur.
She left her native Australia in the late 90s and moved around the Rocky Mountain states doing different, mainly temporary jobs. She waited tables, worked at ski resorts, and in shops.
But eventually, she landed a junior role working supply chain for a startup in Boulder, Colorado.
That startup
Was a sparkling beverage brand called Izzy.
And while working there
She caught the bug. She started to think that maybe
she could come up with an idea as well.
And the idea.
actually came to her on a visit back home to Australia in 2005.
Coelle was visiting her mom and tasted what she thought was the most delicious yogurt of her life.
It happened to be a local brand made in a small beach town in Queensland.
But for years she didn't do anything about it.
She just
dreamed about finding a way to bring that kind of yogurt to America.
How she did it? With no experience working in dairy or running her own business?
Well, that is today's story.
How Coel Tome and her partners managed to turn Noosa into a multi-million dollar yogurt brand that was eventually acquired by Cambles, as in the Soup Company.
Coel grew up in Australia in the 70s and 80s. She came to the US after college and bounced around Oregon, Montana, and Utah.
Before landing in Colorado.
And so
In 2000 I landed in Boulder.
and um ultimately got a job working for this IT company.
Um
Thinking again, you know.
that it would be this sort of Kickstarter to a real career. Yeah. And
realized pretty quickly I was not very passionate about the IT world.
Um
Dying, you know, in a cube.
But I loved living in Baldo and I really wanted to stay.
Bulder was and is
An IT hub, um but it will also was and is a food hub, I think in part and large part because of Hain.
Hain Celestial, which I think is based there and kinda started there, I think. Hain Celestial, White Wave. White Wave, yeah. Some of these really big brands have started there and um
And so Boulder became kinda like the Silicon Valley of food.
Um, and did you were you aware of that when you were living there in two thousand?
I wasn't initially.
Um, food has always been the sort of common thread in my life, you know, from
Growing up and going to farmers markets, I think
being raised by a single mum who just sort of
Had
bigger expectations of, you know, me
being independent and and sort of helping. So I started cooking at a younger age.
Um
I'm a weird nerd. I like going grocery shopping. Like I like just cruising grocery aisles. There's nothing nerdy about that. That's what I do in every city I go to.
It's so fun. Like just
The discovery of things. The best. Um and so yeah, so food.
What's this sort of

in the Mecca of natural food and
I just
decide I was like, I'm gonna work in the food industry.
You s you stayed in that this sort of job that you hated for a at least
Three and a half, four years, right, for this IT company. You were there for quite a while.
I was and
You know, once I sort of had this epiphany that food was where I should be
I didn't really have any defined
career role within food. I was like, I'll do anything just to get my foot in the door.
And because I had been nomadic
My resume looked very spotty.
And so it was probably over a year and a half of applying for every job that I thought I was reasonably qualified for before I landed uh my first food job at Izzy Beverage.
And is he of course the the Sparkling Juice brand. Yeah. And that had started in Boulder and and so presumably th th this was more interesting for you than than the IT job that you had before.
Yeah, well I learned so much, you know.
Sales, marketing.
Um, I was loving it.
Absolutely loving it.
I guess
You're in Boulder and and around two thousand five, from what I understand. You
Uh you go to Australia with your new boyfriend at the time, mm-hmm, a guy named Tate.
My now husband. So
You go to you take him to Australia to meet
Your family, so clearly you're serious about this guy.
Um, and you go
stay with your mom at she's a small beach house in on the Sunshine Coast in in Queensland. And um tell me about that trip.
We were on the Sunshine Coast, we
So we had gone to the beach, we've gone surfing, and we're walking back, we
had stopped in at this um little local corner shop, and you know, back to my love of just
Perusing stores.
Um I ended up in the back and there was a a cooler
And there was this container which was clear. It wasn't really
Very apparent what it was, but I couldn't.
tell that it had passion fruit in it and in Australia passion fruit's a pretty actually traditional flavor.
Um and for anyone that doesn't know Passion Fruit when you cut it open is this vibrant orange.
has black seeds, so it's
Very distinctive if you know what you're looking at.
And so I picked it up.
Turned it over, there's a label on the top of the lid.
uh discover it's yogurt. So I buy it.
And we walk back to my mom's apartment.
And I immediately try it.
And
It was one of those just stop you in your tracks.
Taste moments. Like think about
Eating the best.
peach in the dead of summer, or you know, things like that where you're just like
You don't wanna think about anything else. And it was like that for me. So I'm I'm like
Tate, this is
You've got to taste this. This is like literally the best thing I've ever tasted.
He tastes it.
He's like it's good, but it's just yogurt. And I'm like, hey, look, you don't understand. This is amazing. This is
Revolutionary.
And so I end up calling my mom later that day and I'm I'm telling her about this yogurt that I've just discovered. Um in Australia it's called Queensland yogurt.
And uh you know
Throughout my whole life, my mom has been somebody to dare me to do things out of my comfort zone.
And so she said you know
You should call them.
And I was like
And tell them what, that their yogurt's delicious?
She's like, Well why not?
Like, okay, you know, I turn it over, there's a phone number on the lid.
And so I call and I end up connecting with um
This woman, Kay Matthewson, and um
It's this small family business. They've only been around for about eighteen months. And uh
You know, I give her this sort of like mini pitch, hey, I'm an Aussie expat. I live in Balder, Colorado. It's this amazing food community.
Have you guys ever thought about doing anything with the US?
She's like no, we're we're way too busy.
I was like, Okay.
Well, you know, here's my here's my email address if anything changes.
Would love to hear from you.
Um
So I go back to
Colorado, you know, having
Tasted this yogurt.
literally one time. And
I'm back in Colorado, I'm back working at Izzy.
And I start just looking for something that tastes
Remotely like this yogurt.
Mm. And and the yogurt was it wasn't gr like Greek yogurt. It was like uh
Thick, but
Not as firm as Greek yogurt.
Yeah, so it's a whole milk yogurt.
I mean the best way I can describe it is
eating velvet. It was just so creamy. And then
It's infused with honey.
Uh, and then that paired with the passion fruit was just this like beautiful sweet sort of flavor opposition.
Yeah. And yeah, I couldn't find anything like it.
In Colorado.
And Greek yogurt by this point, two thousand four, two thousand five, you start to see Chabonny and
Faye was around. There were some Greek yogurts that were available.
Yeah, they were they were just coming onto the market. So I could
I could see that there was a trend happening.
with Greek. But it to me it didn't taste as good as
Queens and yoga.
Yeah.
And you keep thinking about this, but
Obviously.
You just go back to your job at Izzy because
It is what it is. But but I guess you you were telling a lot of people about this yoga, right? Like you it it becomes like a weird obsession for you when you go back to Boulder.
Yeah, I mean I sort of
embarked on what I like to describe as my
My yogurt.
Like PhD.
Right. Like I
literally would go to my local Whole Foods, there was a guy working in the dairy section, his name's Joseph. He's still
Works that.
My local whole f whole foods.
Um, and he and I would just ruminate about like all the different brands and what did you think tastes the best and and then we started talking about packaging and you know, we just had like
Very deep.
Meaningful conversations about yogurt.
But while you're in Boulder, like you know, sometimes you'll meet people who are born in another country, like I have a
S notice somebody from Bulgaria and they'll say, Oh
In Bulgaria the tomatoes and cucumbers are so much better than they are in the US, and you're like are they really
I think there's pretty good cucumbers and tomatoes in California. But you know, well, whatever, I get it. You know, I get it. And so you would have been saying to me, Oh, the Australian yogurt
is the best in the world, and I would have been like, okay, great. I would have kind of, you know, sort of subtly rolled my eyes, but I would have, you know, I would have listened to you. You were that person.
I was that person. I mean, driving my husband crazy, driving everyone at Izzy crazy.
I think when you're an expat, you become very nostalgic about things that you can't
Mm.
In your new home.
And so I think that was part of it for me.
But I just couldn't find anything.
that tasted that good, in my opinion.
Yeah.
Alright.
You go back to Australia.
in two thousand seven t for another family visit, but this time
You go back with the idea of making an appointment of meeting the owners of the
Queensland Yogurt Company.
So you're really thinking, all right, I'm gonna take another shot at this and see if there's something there there. Like you really
I was obsessed.
And it was actually my boss at Izzy who was really the one that encouraged me to reach out to them again. That's cool.
I love that I have told you that. I do too. So I actually have my mom call.
The second time. She definitely has the gift of the gab.
And
My mum organized a meeting with the Queenstein Yogurt family.
And you met the these are the owners.
The Mathusons. The Mathusons. Yep. Um so it ends up being
Okay.
Uh, the two sons.
And one of their wives.
Uh, we meet in my mom's beach apartment in
You know, I go back to eleven
Boulder, it's this amazing food community and
I said, I really believe that
The American palette is not that different.
Mm.
from a Nazi palette.
And there's just nothing like it. I said, you know
Yogurt is growing.
as a category, I can attest to that from just having watched it over the past two years.
And I think there's this amazing opportunity. And again
My vision wasn't to create this national brand, I just thought
I could have this really cool
Colorado based company.
And then I selfishly get to eat it.

Uh, maybe could I license it from you? Like w did you have an ask at that lunch? Yeah, it was would you would you consider licensing the recipe to me?
And
When you do an Aussie lunch, you
Definitely have some beers.
And they essentially said, look
Yeah, we s we think there is an opportunity in the US. So
We'd happily license to you.
Um
We'd want to invest in the business.
And we'd be happy to bring like a yogurt maker over.
Um and just help with the initial startup.
Of the business.
This from a three hour lunch and a handshake.
And but no no numbers were discussed at that point. Okay. And and just out of curiosity, I mean
As somebody who makes yogurt myself in my instant pot, it's not, you know, commercial quality yogurt, but
Um
Is it that like did you
Did you need to license the the recipe? Was it that complex? Could could could was there a world where you could just have figured it out?
Maybe.
But that was not what I was thinking. I just felt like this was so unique.
And why try and reinvent the wheel?
Fair enough.
And and you're this is now two thousand seven. Yeah. You go back to Boulder. Let's just pause for a second and talk about where you were at this point in your life, because Izzy had sold.
To Pepsi.
Yeah. And you got some equity when you joined.
So you gotta
Nice size check.
When when Pepsi bought out Izzy, I would assume.
I did, and more money than I ever envisioned.
having in my life. Telling us how much you got from that equity?
Uh I got about seventy five thousand dollars. Wow, that's
Pretty good.'Cause you were you were like in your early thirties at that point.
Yeah, I mean and just
A junior position, I just bought my first house. Yeah, it was sort of
Revolutionary to have this
This kind of money.
probably after you bought the house and the down payment, maybe you got I don't know, maybe between twenty five and fifty grand.
Yeah.
What was your next step? I mean, now you had to you you you knew that they were willing to commit to to this.
Um but I'm assuming I mean what did you know about the yogurt business? What did you know about
Uh
How did it start it or anything? Did you know anything?
I knew nothing about Jerry.
I just knew I love to eat it. Yeah. Um
But
Yogurt, as I realized, very different.
industry from the US to Australia. Like
way more regulated in the US.
You know, the Mathusons were pretty adamant that
We would only be able to make this yogurt.
If we built our own
Manufacturing facility.
And so I'm like, Okay.
I can figure this out, you know, thinking more small scale.
Commissary Kitchen. Um
Then ultimately realize
I have to go st talk to the state health inspector.
Right, because that's right, because bacteria or something, right? So
So you go
Um to the state health
department to get more information. Wh wh where did you find out?
Um, I found out that
I was
even more ill equipped than I imagined. And you know, this state health inspectors kind of like
Figures me out pretty quickly that I am
completely green when it comes to dairy. And he asked me
Do you even know
What the PMO is.
And I say
I have no idea what you're talking about. So the PMO is the Pasturized Milk Ordnance.
And it is this volume.
Document that governs.
Dairy, essentially.
And
He handed me a copy.
And sent me packing and said.
Don't come and talk to me again until you understand this document. Fair enough.
I walk out of the building and literally like shed a tear.
What was the what was the problem with the document? Was it just
Impenetrable.
I mean I felt like it would take me an entire year to read it and really understand it.
So you felt like you just did not have the skill set.
To do it.
And and so
At that point what do you do? I mean I mean at this is the point where a lot of
early stage founders just kinda say, You know what?
Yeah, this is this isn't for me.
I'm gonna move on.
I decided

I was like, Okay.
I can't do this by myself. I need
A dairy expert.
And so I sort of reached out to my network.
And I said, Do you have
Dairy consultants, do you have anybody that's in dairy? And who is your network?
By the way.
My Izzy people.
Um, yeah, s it's just small network.
Yeah.
Just and uh
Asking if they knew people in Boulder who are
connected you just start asking people you knew, do you know anybody in dairy? Yeah.
Exactly.
And it's
It's an old world.
process and
what I'm thinking is very entrepreneurial.
When you say old world, it's like
small families, generational families in this business. Cause a lot of dairies are small, but then they sell to larger brands. Yeah. That just, you know, right. And a lot of these, as far as I know, in in this area, they're they're families that have been in the business for two, three, four generations. And and that's what you're running into?
Exactly.
But I don't see them as somebody that I can necessarily partner with.
Until
One day I'm
at my local coffee shop.
And
I see a flyer for this
Fourth generation dairy farm in northern Colorado called Morning Fresh. A flyer advertising what?
Uh that just sort of gives a little blurb about
They're
Family story.
how they're treating their cows, how they're growing their own feed.
Um, I do a little bit of research and realize that they're selling their bottled milk already at Whole Foods.
Oh so it was a flyer advertising the dairy because they were s you they were branding their milk morning fresh.
Milk at Whole Foods in Colorado. Yeah.
And so I ultimately called Cole.
Getting really good at cold cooling at this point.
And
I connect with uh Rob Graves, Farmer Rob, as we like to call him.
And he was who who was Rob? Was he the owner? Rob is the owner of Morning Fresh, fourth generation dairy farmer.
You know, it sort of
Give him a little mini pitch on the phone.
And your pitch was what?
that I've discovered this amazing yurget. I have a licensed
To make it.
And I'm looking for
Almost like a co man.
Oh a co manufacturing facility that can help me produce it.
And
He's intrigued. He invites me up to the farm. How far how far away from Boulder was it?
It's about an hour north.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Okay.
You know, he was generous to to even have the meeting.
I think he thinks
Pretty crazy at this point.
Um,'cause I don't have any product, right?'Cause tasting is believing. Right. And you're just saying, I have this amazing yogurt. But and he's like, Where is it?
Yeah. You're like it's in Australia. Exactly.
So then
I call my mom.
I asked her to ship me some samples. I don't even remember how we got them through customs'cause you can't technically ship dairy internationally. She just like ships them in in in like with dry ice or something? I think she froze like milk jugs.
Yeah.
I mean imagine this yogurt gets to me
And it's probably not food safe at this point.
Yeah.
But I go back up.
To the dairy, to morning fresh.
Mate with Rob again.
And I get him to taste the product.
And at this point
He has the same taste moment.
That I did back in Australia. He does. Right, cause'cause he could have been like, you know, it's pretty good, but it's not amazing. No, so he's
He's immediately intrigued, um, agrees that this is a huge opportunity
He's like you know
Good timing. I'm in the process of designing and developing a new bottling plant for my fluid milk.
He's like we can probably add a little extra space.
To make yogurt.
So they were not making yogurt, they were just bottling milk and maybe cream.
Yeah.
Because that's a whole different process. Yeah. That's a
That's a whole nother line.
That he's gotta put in.
Exactly.
But he's like, Yeah, we can do it.
So then as we you know, the conversations sort of continue, we realise it probably makes more sense for him to come on.
As As a partner. As a partner.
Fair enough.
Yeah.
Alright, let's let's kinda break this down,'cause this is really important and it's
Always one of the most complicated, awkward, um
frustrating and
just generally uh unpleasant parts of starting a business which is
talking about the details of of of of what to do, how to divide it up, especially when you when it has no value. Like this is worth zero dollars and zero cents. And
You know that the partners in Australia
are willing to put some some money in and but in exchange for ownership.
Yeah. You you want to own a significant amount'cause it's your idea.
Rob is gonna have the um equipment, he's gonna make it.
You probably first of all, in terms of overall startup cost, did you were you able to figure out how much you would need?
By this point.
We would lease the space.
From Rob. Right. So that's
That's
Cash, but it's not like huge upfront costs.
Um
The Australian family was willing to do a pretty
Mm-hmm.
Pretty minor lease on the product. Basically it was a dollar license agreement.
Okay.
Um, because they wanted to be investors.
Right.
And we're thinking about okay.
Who are the retailers in Colorado? What's the opportunity set here?
How much
Do we need to make to service this market?
Um and
sort of backed into this
Number of four hundred thousand dollars.
that would cover the costs of of getting off the ground. Exactly.
How did you have the you didn't have that money?
Um I had some of that money, um
Had a chat with my mom and my stepdad.
So they were on board.
They had tasted the product. They were believers.
Um, and then the Mathusons and Rob. So we were the the three
sort of blocks of investment. So you put all your money together.
to start this thing. And then
In terms of figuring out ownership and equity, did you just m make it simple and just divide it a third, a third, a third?

It was a half a quarter quarter.
'Cause the Matthewson family put in
Allowed to share of money.
Got it. Okay. So you you you and Rob each got a quarter, they got half.
And you would
Try and make a go of it with the four hundred thousand.
Yeah.
And and
I mean, here you are, you are approaching maybe your mid thirties. Were you in any way nervous about putting all that money
Into this business all your life like all the money you saved up so far?
No, I mean I think No, you were not nervous.
There was nothing nerve wracking about that. Not really. I think I was so excited by this opportunity.
And you know, I grew up
Where I didn't have a lot of money as a kid, but my mom always prioritized experiences over
Things.
I've always been a hard worker, so I just felt like if it
All went up in flames.
I could always get a job again.
And and I have to assume that and you're still working at Izzy, right? At this point I had actually left Izzy. Uh I had gone to work with one of my Izzy alums who had started another company called Snickety.
So you became a co this is interesting'cause how I built this always comes together in these m like
I know that Izzy, a check from Izzy also helped to finance a start of Soul Cycle.
We did that episode years ago, and I know one of the founders of SoulCycle was an ear early investor in Izzy, and they got a two hundred thousand dollar check, and that helped to find that SoulCycle. And then Snickety
the I think the it was founded by
the wife of Brett Shulman who would go on to help create and scale Kava. Yeah.
Which we've done on the show.
'Ca snickety never really took off. It didn't work out.
But it but this was a snack kid snack company that you were
Yeah, it essentially
sustain my family while I was getting noosa off the ground. Um
And we were in sort of this little co working office with a few other
consultants. So they sort of became my in house advisory board.
Alright, so it's gonna be you, Rob, and the Matthewsons. And
Th that that p company was called like Queensland Yogurt Company, but that was not what you were gonna call it.
in the US.
No, I I really felt like that ha had
No connection.
to Colorado, to the US, no one would have any understanding of what Queensland is.
But I wanted it to have
a link back to its Aussie heritage and you know the family, the recipe, it all comes from the Sunshine Coast.
And it's like well what are some of the beaches on the Sunshine Coast? And
Noosa. I was like, okay, it's easy to say, it's not very long, it ties into the storytelling.
This is the name.
So, you know, it took a little bit of convincing, but
Finally, everyone agrees it's NUSA.
Alright, so you call it Nusa yogurt and and Yogurt with an H too. With an A.
Yoga with an H. Yes. Right, okay, because
That H is really important in the word yogurt. Without it, you would not know how to pronounce that word. I mean part of me would have been like, well, are we gonna have to pay the typesetter a little extra money for that H? Like could we save a few pennies by removing the H?
But no, I get it. You want to the H there, okay. Yeah, to but just again linking it back to its Aussie heritage.
Ha ha ha.
When we come back in just a moment.
How Coel brings her first tubs of Nusa to a major retailer.
And how she responds when they say
We hate this packaging.
Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to how I built this.
Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz.
So it's 2009 and to launch her new yogurt brand, Coel has built a partnership that's 8,000 miles long.
In Australia, the Matheson family is handling the recipe, and in Colorado, Rob Graves, the dairy farmer.
He's getting ready to make it.
So Rob's building his new
Bottling plant and as
Things go with construction.
It's delayed.
Uh yeah, so we initially thought we were gonna launch in 2009. The building's taking longer to get finished. Um I'm with the direction of the Australian family trying to find equipment at auctions.
And ultimately
You know it
really is we're gonna push to a a twenty ten launch. Things are just too delayed. Um I think a other thing to note too is just
People thought we were crazy because this is coming off the heels of the global financial crisis. So I think there was sort of like what? You're gonna invest all this money, you're gonna start a new business when the world is sort of
Imploding.
Um
And I didn't even really
Consider that.
I just was like I still think
Even in hard times.
People are gonna invest in delicious food. Yeah.
Um, all right. I wanna just go back to the process for a moment, right? Be because you had the the Mathisons come and show
You guys how to make this yogurt, right?
Yeah.
I I'm assuming there's probably I know we'll get to this.
'Cause you're not with the company anymore. So there's probably some proprietary things that that maybe can't be discussed. But
Can you sort of generally describe what made it so
Complex.
Again, what did you ha what what did it require what was required to make this yogurt into this creamy
yogurt that you
Loved so much.
You know, I don't know that it ultimately was that complex, but I think
Part of what made it unique initially
was that it was being made in ten gallon buckets.
Which is crazy. Like I mean I remember doing
runs to the home depot because we were running out of buckets. So
You essentially are cooling the yoga.
Faster'cause it's in a smaller volume vessel.
So that changes sort of the like the way the cultures are interacting with with the product.
Um, I think the fact that we were infusing it with honey, I mean there was certainly sugar added as well, but
Infusing it with honey gave it a different flavor profile.
And what made that unique made it harder to scale as we grew. And also were you like, um was it was it
I is fermenting the right term. I don't know. I mean is was it was culturing like for how long? Like twelve eight hours, twelve hours, fifteen hours, was that an issue too?
Um certainly, right? I mean again
Taking it from this small vessel.
To a larger vessel, to a larger vessel.
And trying to have consistency in the flavor profile.
was really unique and I it's sort of a testament to Rob
'Cause it was sort of his engineering brain that really figured out how.
To develop that. Yeah.
I mean, we were making it in ten gallon buckets for over a year, which
gave the state health inspector a lot of headache.
You know, he gave us a pretty long runway, but
out of the gates, he said, You can't do this long term.
You couldn't do it long term because there was a risk of contamination.
Yeah, I mean there was too many touch points was his opinion.
Yeah.
A few one hundred gallon buckets.
Okay, so once once you guys get manufacturing going, you
You obviously have to start
getting the yogurt into stores and
You said earlier that Rob
Like was already selling milk to a few Whole Foods in Colorado. So at at least he had an inn, right, with Colorado Whole Foods, which is not not the entire country, but still it's still
something and um and I guess
You guys were able to to get a meeting with a buyer to see
If they would be willing to
To sell your yogurt.
Yeah, so by this point we've um
You know, we've invested in the equipment, we've invested in the packaging.
And
You know
With the packaging
We really wanted it to be reflective of that first experience I had in Australia, which was
Transparency.
um letting the product sort of speak for itself and
You know, in that initial sort of start up capital
we didn't really factor in a custom mold, we just sort of assumed that we'd be able to find
A traditional
Dairy cup that was transparent. Off the shelf. Off the shelf. A clear like a clear container. Off the shelf. Exactly. Okay. And
It actually didn't exist.
So you know, at that point
Most yogurt was sort of between five point three to six ounces.
And
There was nothing. There was nothing available in stock packaging.
In those sizes. Right.
I was pretty adamant that
we need it to be in transparent packaging.
And so that ultimately led us into this eight ounce container. It looked more like a hummus tub.
Mm-hmm.
But
you know, with some refinement, I felt like it could stand out, it could be unique.
Um
But it was
A little nerve wracking'cause we knew that just by volume.
It would drive us to a higher price point on shelf.
And so this is what we've got as we go to our first meeting with Whole Foods. With Whole Foods. You show them this packaging, okay. Yeah. They just see
The packaging and I like
We hate your packaging.
And I'm like, okay.
I understand. I was like but
Let's taste the food, like let's taste the yogurt.
So we do a taste testing.
They're raving about the product.
But then they immediately go back.
And they're like, but we hate your packaging. We hate the packaging. Yeah. It's eight ounces. It's gonna take up all this space on the shelf. Like
You know, they're thinking all of these unit metrics and
I'm like look.
All I could do was be honest. I said, We have already invested
All of our startup capital.
In this equipment.
In this packaging.
We can't pivot.
At this point. Like we've just got to go.
So I just wore them down. I'm like, let's f ignore the packaging, let's think about the food.
If you give us this opportunity, I will be in every one of your Colorado stores.
Demoing the hell out of it.
And we're gonna make it successful.
All right. Th which is great that you did that because y whole foods, they know what they're doing and and here you are
A new entrepreneur, and so the fact that you stuck to it.
I guess you didn't really have a choice, yet.

But I I wonder um
I mean before even before you y y they agreed and you you went into Whole Foods, right? How did you how are you gonna differentiate it just
In that
millisecond or one second that somebody would just pass by
this brand um
in the refrigerated yogurt aisle.
The only thing that we had on the packaging
Besides the name Nusa, we had a sp
A little tagline.
that said Aussie culture, which obviously has a double meaning.
Colorado Fresh.
That was the only thing that implied.
that there was sort of a link to Australia.
Again, I think because it was in transparent packaging.
You could see the freshness of the product.
the fruit puree with the white yogurt really popped.
And nobody on the shelf at that point in time.
was doing transparent packaging. So I just had
This strong belief that if I had discovered it
Purely because I could see the product when I first tasted it in Australia.
somebody else was gonna take that leap of faith.
Alright, so finally, finally you get this
first run into Whole Foods I think
in January of twenty tw ten, and it's just in
Colorado.
Just all in all over Colorado? Yeah, only the Colorado stores.'Cause the Rocky Mountain region at that point umbrellaed I think Idaho, Utah, um, but the bulk of the stores were in Colorado.
And how much yogurt at this point?
I I read that at this point you could only make about two hundred gallons of yogurt a week, which was probably
Plenty at that at that point. Yeah.
Yeah, so we I mean we were making one, maybe two batches of yoga a week to start.
And what were your first flavors that you were gonna put on the shelves at Whole Foods? So we had um four flavors. We had honey, we had raspberry.
blueberry and mango.
So you did not do the passion fruit. We did not do the passion fruit. Tricky in Colorado to get. I mean it's probably expensive to get.
Yeah, at that point, like just even trying to figure out how to source that puree was more than we wanted to address. And I think knowing
that
yogurt consumers are still pretty traditional.
we wanted to sort of stay in that bandwidth of having flavors that we knew would sell.
Um and mango was sort of maybe the most exotic in that lineup.
Alright, so you get into the whole foods and then you spend
Every
opportunity you have to go to each of these Whole Foods in Colorado and how many ha roughly how many were there in Colorado in two thousand ten? It couldn't have been more than seven or eight. Yeah, it was I think max maybe ten stores. So I would just sort of
You know, we hired a few other demo people, but just sort of rotating through those stores, really sort of connecting with the store managers. Cause I really I think from my time as being
a server, right? Like really understanding relationships and how they can serve you.
um when you're getting out of the gates. I really wanted to build those relationships with not just the store manager, but the people stocking the yogurt. So I in a sense I would
not only sample consumers, but I would go and sample all the store employees as well. So you would make sure that the employees at the store tried it too. Yeah, absolutely.
And and um
D did that work? I mean
in store sampling? It did.
It absolutely did.
And obviously as we grew, I couldn't be in all of these places, but when you actually meet the founder
Of a business.
um there is sort of a more openness and emotional connection to trying something and believing in it.
Uh so I actually had a lot of friends and family do sampling events for me as well. I just
I tried to think of as many avenues where I could get people
To taste this product.
And also doing farmers' markets.
Yeah, so that started um spring of two thousand ten.
That was sort of a
Actually a harder sell than Whole Foods was getting into the boulder farmers market.
It's considered one of the top ten farmers markets in the country. So you know, essentially if you come to Colorado in the summer, you'll probably end up
At the Boulder Farmers Market.
And when you were s when you were doing this at the farmer's market
Again, like probably weren't that many people selling yogurt at the farmer's market. We were the only yogurt vendor.
I like I still have to laugh thinking about how crazy it got and
That just sort of
built a ground swell and people
obviously we're then like, Well where can I get it, you know, if I can't make it to the farmers market on the weekend.
And at that point we still were really only available at Whole Foods and a few independent markets.
Did that have I mean it did that
G get you I mean, were there were there people coming up and saying, Hey, who are you guys? Like
Can can we talk? I mean, w did you start to hear any of that? Yeah. So we actually had a lot of inbound um emails from out of state.
And one of those inbound ema was actually from a retailer called Hivee.
Uh, which is in the Midwest in Iowa. Mm.
And uh essentially I don't know if I sampled him or somebody else did, but
The president of Ivy had been at the farmer's market and tried noosa.
And loved it.
And basically
told his dairy buyer to contact us that they wanted to carry it.
So we
Said yes. And
I think
The learning from that was that
Yes is with the right partners.
were good opportunities.
But we learned
That not every opportunity was the right one.
And
You did not
Presumably have the
Logistical capacity to really go that far beyond
Colorado maybe into the Midwest.
Yeah, I mean at that point we were producing the product with about twenty eight days of shelf life.
Um, which is short. I know there's other products out there with even shorter shelf lives, but you know, you add in shipping and like logistics of getting it onto the shelf and it you got like fifteen days. Yeah.
Um
And how did they do at Whole Foods in Colorado?
Like it was hard to keep up.
with the growth in Whole Foods. Wow. And they quickly expanded us into their Rocky Mountain stores. Yeah.
I think and and in your first full year business, so you really launched in January of two thousand ten.
Um were you profitable?
I mean, getting there.
Getting there. So pretty great first year.
Yeah. I mean
Not accounting for the fact that we weren't paying ourselves. Yeah.
Right. Um I guess you got an opportunity to work with a pretty big retailer in New York in two thousand eleven. Uh first of all, who who was the retailer? Uh the retailer was ShopRite.
Sho oh that's a big one. It's a big one. And they want it to carry your products. Now that's New York. That's not Iowa. That's far. That's far. That's not Colorado.
Um but it was a big opportunity. Yeah. To go in there. And how many how many stores?
For you.
They want you in. They were I think about two hundred and fifty stores.
Wow. Yeah.
And you guys said yes. We said yes.
So in two thousand eleven we brought on a uh business development manager. He was a um outside contractor.
And
You know.
a very good salesperson, let's just say. Um and at this point we still have
not ever sat down and created any type of strategy for the business.
We're just
Pinch hitting, like if an opportunity comes up.
We're gonna say yes.
And so we get
This meeting with Shop Right.
We know that we have to invest with these retailers as far as, you know, potentially slotting fees and all of their in-store marketing programs.
But we started asking
And
tried to get creative where we would say, look, we're willing to invest whatever that slotting fee is to get on the shelf.
But but can we put it into demos? Can we put it into
your retail marketing programs
Where we have a real opportunity.
to get off the shelf'cause we're proving out in Colorado that
If we can get people to taste this product
It's gonna sell.
And
Interestingly, Shopwright said, Okay, well
We're willing
to defer your slotting fees. We're gonna give you
A twelve month time horizon.
So you would have to pay them the s the fee to pay it up front. Yeah.'Cause again, and we've said this in the show before.
Grocery store.
if it works is an amazing business because they get the markup
And they make money from that and then they make money because the brands have to pay them to put you're essentially renting space on their shelf. So they have all of these multiple revenue streams. Yeah.
So it was really learning on the job for me.
But yeah, so SharpRite says we're going to instead of charging you
Hundred thousand dollars out of the gates, we'll bill it.
quarterly.
And I'm like, okay, well this sounds like, you know, something that we can yeah that we can cash flow. So we launch
So we're already
A hundred thousand dollars in the hole.
out of the gates.
We're trucking it out.
L T L
Which, you know, doesn't move as fast as a full truck, is more expensive than a full truck.
Trucks obviously.
Come to learn that ShopRite is probably one of the hardest operationally
retailers to work with. Like if you miss if you miss
Their delivery window by like five minutes.
They'll refuse you and then you have to reschedule. Wow.
Getting it we
I mean,
You're making this in Colorado. It's got a 28 day shelf life.
The product.
Yes. And to your point, yeah, so we've got twenty-eight days of shelf life, we just get rejected at the dock.
Takes another two days to get rescheduled. I mean
It was
It was a nightmare.
There was sort of a disconnect between
What was coming from corporate.
Down to the individual stores. So we were seeing not all the stores were getting set. So everything that could go wrong.
was going wrong. And I mean we were literally
Hammeraging.
Cash.
for this customer from spoils to
the slotting fees to not getting a much
velusty because it wasn't getting set in all of the stores. And finally I was like this is not working. Like
This
Retailer could sink the entire operation.
So what did you do?
We pulled out.
You pulled up.
We pulled out.
Which you just ate it. You just knew you're gonna uh how long be before you how how long did you before you made that decision? A year or six months? It was probably about six six months.
That we realized that we couldn't continue to do it.
You were just a and and you basically lost at least a hundred grand off that deal.
And some.
And um
It was such a hard even though I knew we were losing so much cash.
It was a really hard decision to make because I knew that if we pulled out
That might be the last opportunity to ever sell at that retailer.
Right.
And
We've we've had these
examples on the show where
You know, it's it's a struggle, it's a struggle, it's a struggle, and then eventually
you know, after just bleeding for years, like
It works out. And that could have happened here, but
What you're saying is
You didn't do all of the
kind of

in maybe in the way you should have done,'cause you y'cause that would have
You would have realized this was not gonna be
Sustainable. Absolutely. I mean we didn't do any of that.
We just were kind of operating in the wild west.
Yeah. You know, it's interesting. We did an episode on on this brand called Zoomies, which sells skateware and snowboard gear. Um, and uh Tom Campion who was on the show, and I remember him saying something which was
W what would makes a retail brand successful
This is basically
Relentless.
Focus on inventory control. Yeah.
And the point of that was like
It's those little boring things'cause I I think accounting is so boring.
It's just the most boring part of a business.
But it's
so critical. Like it's sometimes
That is not sometimes often, it's that.
Which can make or break a business. Absolutely.
I hundred percent agree.
And
We weren't focused on that in the first, I'd say, two years.
Until we had that.
Big missed up.
Yeah.
So I guess you you're on the east coast in New York, it's an an influential area, like
It must have also shattered the idea that
That
Oh, the American palette. It's just like the like it must have part of you, I would assume, must have thought maybe I was wrong. Maybe this is just working gonna work in some parts of America. Yeah.
I still had this strong belief.
That New York could be a great market for us.
And it's, you know, ShopRide is an amazing retailer. Like they do a ton of velocity and a ton of volume.
But

It was too much.
And I mean, they pretty much said you'll never you'll never sell at our store again.
Mm.
And I was like, Okay.
But
I'm not gonna be a business if I don't do this.
When we come back in just a moment.
The delicate partnership between Coelle, Rob the Dairy Man, and
And the Matthewsons?
Starts to break down.
Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to How I Built This.
Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raj. So it's 2012, and after an abrupt exodus from Shoprit in New York.
Coelle has managed to steady the business and is even thinking about expanding again. So she takes Noosa to Expo West, the big natural foods show in California.
Alright, so you guys have a booth there.
Buyers and you know
vendors, all kinds of people are walking around and trying different things.
Uh and one of the
I guess w a group of people who came by were from Target. Yes.
Did you know they were from Target or were like they hiding their badges or I didn't know they were from Target, no. Right. Yeah. No, they were they were hiding their badges. A lot of those buyers are pretty good at at being stealth.
Yeah, it wasn't till
you know, post expo that we actually got an email from Target.
Uh I think Target maybe had been a little bit behind the curve with Greek.
and wanted to be ahead of what they saw as sort of the next evolution in yogurt. And they thought Nusa
Could be that.
Um
So they essentially offered us a test.
in I think it was about
two hundred and fifty of their super target.
uh formats.
Wow. And did you have the capacity to fulfill that? I mean at this point, how much
yogurt were you making a week? We're now probably operating at least four to five batches a week.
So we're we're starting to butt up against what I would consider some capacity constraints, right?'Cause
You're now having to bring on probably two shifts of people to work a seven day uh schedule.
And at this point I'm happy to say we're out of the ten gallon buckets.
And so it was just it was sort of this constant leapfrog we've got at this point.
We have a line of credit from a traditional bank who's allowing us to buy more expensive equipment, and we're just
constantly investing in the manufacturing process.
By the way, out of curiosity, what is the maximum
Shelf life you can get.
Four.
Cold.
Pastorized yogurt.
You know, I'm not sure about some of the competitors, but we were at um forty five days.
Okay. So huge improvement over twenty eight.
Yes. But still it just shows you like the minute that leaves the the warehouse the clock is ticking. Otherwise you have to throw it away.
Absolutely. I mean it's just an argument for going into dried beans.
Oh.
Hundred percent guy. I will never start a perishable food company again. Yeah. All right, so you guys have some automation and you finance this mainly through loans.
So once you're going into a target, you're also gonna go from like
You could go from like
Two million in sales to like
Ten million in sales, fifteen million in sales within
Months, a year.
Like, I mean, just'cause of the scale of a target.
I mean
So we launched that was probably like mid year that we launched in Super Target.
They came back four months later and expanded us into a thousand stores. A thousand more stores.
Thousand stores. And and were you at breaking point?
Like at that point as a business.
Yes, we were at breaking point and basically I had to stop selling.
At that point.
You had to stop signing contracts with the retailers.
Yeah.
Which is I mean a good problem to have, but like had once you're sort of in the groove of of selling. Um
We know.
'Cause again, like in the back of my head I have sort of like, Okay, well if I say no now
Will that opportunity exist and
Twelve months.
And are you putting all your eggs in the target basket, which
Could or could not work.
Yes.
Thankfully it worked.
Tell me a little bit about the business by
By this point, end of 2012, you're in a thousand targets.
But from what I've read, you guys are really running lean, like I mean, we were profitable. End of twenty twelve, we were close to a twenty million dollar business.
So um
We were able to
Hey people.
reasonable market, like competitive salaries, but it was still such a small team. Right, to attract a good COO you would have had to have paid at least$150.
Hundred fifty grand and then
We were able to uh offer some options.
They ended up being
The only person that we offered options to which
actually became a bit of a point of contention um between the partners
As we start growing even further. Yeah, I imagine.
And we never had a board of directors, we never had an internal advisory board. So it just became sort of butting heads, um, as far as how do we continue to grow this business and put a
appropriate team members around it. Yeah, I mean who was in charge? It was you, there was Rob at the dairy, and then the brothers, the Mathison family in Australia
Who actually was the decision maker? Was that ever was that ever kind of discussed who would ultimately make the decisions?
No. No. So everybody had a veto in a sense.
Exactly. Which is not great.
It's it's definitely a recipe for not great, especially when you're on a rocket ship.
Of gross.
Why didn't you guys have that discussion? I'm not I'm not brow beating you,'cause I've made the same mistakes.
I'm just curious why you didn't
Was it just an oversight? Was it like you never thought that this would
Be required.
Yeah, for me personally, you know, it was my first time ever being in business. You know, I could see
that other companies were doing it, but I had a naive sense and trust in my business partners that we could just all get along and be aligned because things were
Pretty rosy in the beginning.
But with growth and harder decision making, um, it just became readily apparent that we were all
Not
Super aligned in how we wanted to go forward. What were the disputes over?
Oh my gosh, I mean
ranging from should we pay ourselves, um, you know, I was sort of the poor business partner where I had to have that second job where the other two partners had
businesses that they could rely on to pay themselves um to, yeah, how to grow the business. You know, even with that mistake at ShopRite, there was still sort of this pressure to say yes to every opportunity, um, where I was sort of pushing back and saying we actually have to have
more strategy um if we want to keep cash flowing this rather than taking outside investment.
And then sort of
Coming into twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen
And I could just sort of see that we were gonna hit this wall.
Around around
If we couldn't if we couldn't agree how to hire
A real team of people.
Yeah.
when things start to really take off, sometimes founders need to get out of their own way.
Yeah.
Just reading between the lines here, and and again, they're not here to kind of refute this, so I I'll do my best to
You know, I we always try to be very fair to everybody'cause it's a great
product that you were selling, but it sounds like
The clashes really were with you and the
Australian partners.
And Rob, I mean and Rob. I we all just had very different viewpoints on how to go forward.
Uh with growth.
They were more con you felt like they were more conservative? More conservative.
really didn't want to give up equity and and I understand that too. Like I understand that perspective, but I think I knew that that's what it would take.
uh to really recruit skyrocket. Yeah, to recruit the right people and
We essentially hired a salesperson, um
without sort of that equity ask and literally had to fire them two months later, right? Like we just couldn't get the right people. When they have no skin in the game, they're just you know, s I mean you you just it's a crapshoot, it's just they could be great. Yeah.
But um if they have skin in the game they're incentivized to really
Do well. Yeah.
And then I had had my daughter in twenty thirteen, so I was starting to like max out on just
My capacity. Wow.
That's a lot.
That's a lot.
And then interestingly
We had sort of created
Or revolutionized whole milk yogurt, and we started getting
Big players coming in and
directly competing with us. So within I would say sort of that
2012 to 2014 time frame, there were probably six knockoffs that came into the market from
Dann from Hain Celestial to even Kroger doing a private label version of Noosa.
Alright, so I imagine you're starting to think.
We gotta do something about this.
Or this might all go down the tubes.
Yeah.
So it was
Begin of 2014, the Australians were starting to talk about wanting to take some chips off the table.
And Rob
probably could have just gone in perpetuity,'cause he's a fourth generation dairy farmer, right? Like
I feel like dairy farmers, people of that world just
Work hard and just keep going, no matter what.
And
So it just became this sort of dialogue of like
How do we solve all of these problems?
So
I think by twenty fourteen you guys are doing like forty, forty five million dollars in revenue.
And growing.
You were feeling like
The four of you guys were not
Necessarily the right team.
To turn this into a hundred million dollar.
business.
Maybe
n not the right team is not the right um way to sort of view it, but
It really was
A bigger team.
Um somebody that
Was
position to take it into that
Hundred plus million.
realm because it does become a very different business, right? Like you are
An important brand to retailers. There's just different expectations from your business partners.
I mean
I feel bad for a lot of our employees that were with us from the early days in the sense that
They never really got
you know, a lot of oversight, you know, we weren't building like actual career paths for these people.
So even though we were a cultured product, I didn't feel like we had a great internal culture in the sense of Interesting.
You know, creating real business opportunities or, you know, growth opportunities for our employees.
And then we finally sort of got alignment around, okay
We don't think we want to sell to a strategic
At this point.
You don't want to be acquired because we don't want to be acquired because you know Rob still really wants to be part of the business.
I'm sort of on the fence. I could have probably gone either way.
And then you know, the Australian family just really wanted to sort of realize their investment.
So we ended up hiring an investment banker.
and sort of running a process to find more of that private equity.
type investment that would support the growth and help us build out that team. Alright, so twenty fourteen you do get a strategic investment from a group called Advent.
Yes. But until they actually
acquired or or put in a uh uh the investment.
You guys were trying you were they were probably in your data room looking at your business. Meantime, you're running out of product, like there's a lot and that that deal could fall through. Absolutely.
Which was
Nerve wracking, right? Like I knew this was sort of like
If we lose this deal
were pretty screwed, like
It was
Probably the most stress I've ever endured in my life.
Um
But thankfully that end sort of s somewhat ended when they they made the investment. Yes. And they buy a majority stake.
In News.
They're Boston based, yeah.
Private equity firm.
Um they buy a majority position in NUSA.
But you guys stay on, I mean at least you and Rob stay on as employees.
We do. Um, and actually became you know, we rolled over a pretty significant um minority ownership in the business that you know, that was sort of how the deal was structured.
You were incentivized to make it. Incentivised, that's that's the right word.
Yeah.
But you know, it makes a lot of sense, right? Like we're in the middle of this growth curve. And to your point
We do bring a lot of value to the business at that point, even if we feel like we need to
sort of start to hand over the reins.
And was it fairly quickly after they because I think November twenty fourteen they made that investment.
Was it like by early twenty fifteen the whole new executive team was brought in? Yes.
And these are people with deep experience in food.
Yes.
And it was a game changer.
It really wasn't. You actually liked it. You wanted God, these people know nothing about this business. I hate working with them. They don't believe in the quality or the spirit. No, you didn't feel that way.
No.
So I sort of see these two very distinct chapters.
that I was involved with at NUSA was sort of like the Wild West chapter.
And then
Our professional chapter which
We cr I think we created an amazing internal culture.
And I had
an absolute blast in sort of that second chapter because
I didn't have the tension with my business partners anymore.
Um and so you were committed to staying
With them, I think for what
for about four years.
I mean we were committed until you know they decided to sell the business. Um and they did eventually sell it, I think in twenty eighteen, right? Oh the it was it was a merger.
uh aquam kind of thing.
Um with a a uh a company called Sovosh Brands.
And then they owned or own a a bunch of
Brands like Rouse, I think.
Pasta sauce is one of the brands they they owned. Maybe they still do own it.
Uh, they did until Campbell's Oh Campbell's bought it. Right. Campbell's bought them out. Yeah. Yeah, beginning of this year. And so you were
your remaining shares are bought out at that point. And I have to imagine you actually may may have made more money as a minority owner.
than when you your majority stake was bought out.
Yeah, I mean You had two bites at the apple, as they say. Two bites at the apple. Um
Yeah. I mean, this business that was started really in twenty ten, I mean it was an i it was kind of like an eight and a half year journey, which

Doesn't seem that long, but I'm sure from your perspective it was a long journey.
Was a long journey'cause there was, you know, those start up years too, right? Yeah.
So it was over a decade of my life.
That I literally
All I thought about was yogurt, which is a really long time to think about one thing. And I feel like I worked a lifetime.
in that decade.
When you when you were done, which or sort of when you
Stepped out of the business after the acquisition in twenty eighteen.
well positioned financially, probably f easily for the rest of your life.
What did you yeah, what did you w do would you want to do all the things you weren't able to do while you were building the business?
Yeah.
I didn't eat yogurt for an entire year.
Really?
No.
Nothing. No, I didn't even want to sh I didn't want to shop the yogurt aisle. I just didn't want to think about yoga.
For a while.
Mm.
decide I would say yes to
Any sort of travel opportunity.
Yeah. And
I just needed
To be like
A little chill.
For a while.
And
hang out with my kid, hang out with my family more. Like.
probably one of the most important things I'll do in my life is raise a good human.
Um
And I finally have a little more time to focus on that.
Yeah.
And so
There was no plan there is no plan for you to start another
Business. Like you've done that.
And you have no ambition or desire to go through that again.
Yeah, it would be hard. I think it would take something incredibly special.
to want to go back into the trenches again. You can make more yogurt if you want. I could even I could even explore buying Nusa back if I wanted to. Right. It's I think it's for sale. I think that that Campbells is looking for a buyer.
It is. Um
I don't think I'm going back into yogurt.
Though I am in I am very interested in sort of the dairy free space. I know that sort of seems counterintuitive, but No
No, it's interesting.
I sort of feel like I'm back at university.
that university phase, right? Where I'm like
What the hell.
do I want to do with my life?
And so I'm just exploring a lot of different things.
Um when you think about
about the journey you took, you know, and and I mean starting this business and
Boulder thinking it was gonna be a like a local business and getting the family in Australia to work with you and and and meeting Rob and the dairy and all that that happened and and
w and then making a lot of money off of this thing, which should probably
I'm sure wasn't
in your
plan, but of course was a very pleasant ending, I'm sure. How how much of of of what happened do you attribute to luck? And how much do you think had to w had to do with the
The work you put in.
I think there's a huge element of luck.
Right. I think about
Two thousand eight and sort of seeing this emerging trend of Greek yogurt. And in in some ways, I actually think
We thought we had missed the boat.
Mm-hmm
Ultimately we timed it.
Just perfectly because
It just reinvigorated the category, Greek yogurt, and we got to ride that wave with the big players.
But
Coupled with that
Is
You know, as much as I may have disagreed.
with my business partners over different things.

we can attest to is that we all worked.
Really bloody hot.
You know, I've mentored
Some start up companies where they sort of say, Well we want to be where you are.
And I'm like, okay, well I don't know if I can actually help you.
'Cause you have to be willing.
to work really hard and your eye cannot be on
this big outcome.
Right, and that was never
What it was about.
For me in the beginning, or for Rob.
It was
you know, a passion around this product that
kind of took on a life of its own.
That's Coelle Tomei, co-founder of Nusa Yogurt.
By the way, the company did eventually get around to launching a passion fruit yogurt, the flavor that inspired the whole thing.
But
Today.
out of the eighteen different noosa flavors, including
Cinnamon roll and pomegranate and
Tart cherry?
Passion fruit has sadly been dropped from the rotation.
Hey thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And if you're interested in insights, ideas, and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, please sign up for my newsletter at guyroz.com or on Substack.
This episode was produced by Devin Schwartz with music composed by Ramtina Erablui. It was edited by Neva Grant with research from Olivia Rockman.
Our engineers were Robert Rodriguez and Gilly Moon.
Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, JC Howard, Carla Estevez, Sam Paulson, Chris Massini, Carrie Thompson, John Isabella.
And Elaine Coates.
I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to how I built this.