Founder Feature: Jana Goodbaum of Happy Wolf
The Startup CPG Podcast
Startup CPG
4.9 • 642 Ratings
🗓️ 24 January 2025
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode of The Startup CPG Podcast, Grace Kennedy chats with Jana Goodbaum, co-founder of Happy Wolf, a snack company revolutionizing toddler and kids' snacks with their "wildly simple" refrigerated bars. Jana shares her journey from advertising executive to entrepreneurial mom, driven by the frustration of limited healthy snack options for her child.
Discover how Jana and her co-founder, Derek, navigated challenges like product development, sourcing allergen-free ingredients, finding the perfect co-packer, and educating consumers about their innovative refrigerated snack bars. Jana also dives into the importance of strategic branding, leveraging influencers, building a passionate community, and their milestone launch in Whole Foods.
Tune in to hear how Happy Wolf is reshaping the kids' snack market, the trends driving clean eating innovation, and Jana's insights for startups entering retail and trade shows like Expo West.
Don’t miss this inspiring episode. Tune in now!
Listen in as they share about:
- Happy Wolf Overview and Founding Story
- Product Development
- Branding and Marketing
- Retail and Distribution
- Community and Social Media
- Advertising and Promotions
- Future Goals
Episode Links:
Website: https://happywolf.com/
Instagram: @happywolfsnacks
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janagoodbaum/?originalSubdomain=ca
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- Episode music by Super Fantastics
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey folks, are you ready to boost your e-commerce sales and profitability? |
| 0:05.9 | When I ran a brand, the hardest bill to swallow was money wasted on a bad performance marketing strategy. |
| 0:11.6 | Meet the team from Pennock Digital Marketing. |
| 0:13.9 | They're strategists, media planners, and SEO experts who can't stand seeing emerging brands struggle with inefficient marketing spend. |
| 0:20.2 | They create tailored solutions for brands who generate over $25,000 in monthly e-commerce revenue |
| 0:25.6 | to help them achieve profitable growth. |
| 0:28.4 | But wait, there's more. |
| 0:29.9 | Pennock is offering qualifying startup CPG brands a special deal, |
| 0:33.5 | either $15,000 in ad spend or a full quarter of SEO services. |
| 0:38.7 | To see if you qualify, head over to Pennock.co.co slash startup CPG. |
| 0:43.5 | That's P-E-N-N-O-C-K.com slash startup CPG. |
| 0:48.7 | It's in the show notes. |
| 0:53.6 | The We did set out with was this extremely high standard when it came to ingredients. |
| 1:09.0 | So we said, okay, first of all, everything's organic. |
| 1:12.6 | It's non-GMO. We knew we wanted the clean label project certification. We knew we wanted to be |
| 1:18.3 | allergen-free so that they could go into sort of every school, every daycare, no matter what |
| 1:22.9 | the restrictions were and make them accessible to sort of kids with allergies. And so we went in with this |
| 1:29.9 | sense of, okay, we want this type of ingredients. We want them to taste really good. And we actually |
| 1:36.8 | want them to fill a kid up. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the start of CPG podcast. |
| 1:46.0 | This is Grace and today I'm joined by Jana Goodbom, the founder of Happy Wolf. |
| 1:52.0 | Happy Wolf makes nutritious fridge fresh snack bars for kids in flavors like chocolate chip, |
| 1:58.0 | apple cinnamon, and strawberry. |
... |
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