Founders Feature: Lucy Dana of One Trick Pony
The Startup CPG Podcast
Startup CPG
4.9 • 642 Ratings
🗓️ 21 November 2025
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode of the Startup CPG Podcast, Caitlin Bricker speaks with Lucy Dana, founder of One Trick Pony, the peanut butter brand revolutionizing a pantry staple with innovative packaging. Lucy shares her journey from tech and coffee operations to launching a two-ingredient peanut butter made with Argentinian peanuts, offering practical insights on product development, retail growth, and the power of solving real customer problems.
Together, they discuss Lucy's pivot from standard jars to groundbreaking upside-down packaging that eliminates oil separation, the importance of listening to customer feedback, and how viral social media success (6 million combined views!) led to inbound retailer interest. Lucy also reflects on her experience at Uber and Blue Bottle Coffee, the challenges of being a solo founder managing everything from co-manufacturer searches to suitcase mishaps, and why focusing on mass appeal over artisanal positioning opened doors to club retailers and conventional channels.
Packed with candid stories about operational headaches, packaging innovation, and the reality of scaling from natural to mass retail, this conversation is essential listening for founders navigating product-market fit, anyone passionate about differentiation in crowded categories, and those learning to balance lean operations with growth ambitions.
Tune in now to learn how solving a simple but annoying problem can transform your business trajectory and create authentic retailer demand.
Listen in as they share about:
- One Trick Pony's Origin Story & Argentinian Peanuts
- The Upside-Down Jar Innovation & Development Process
- Solving Customer Pain Points vs. Being Just a "Cute Brand"
- Viral Social Media Success & Inbound Retailer Interest
- Transitioning from Natural to Mass & Club Retail
- Operations Background at Uber & Blue Bottle Coffee
- Solo Founder Realities & Fractional Team Strategy
- E-Commerce vs. Retail Balance & Growth Plans
- Messaging Evolution & Product Differentiation
- Dream Collaborations & What's Next
Episode Links
Website:https://onetrickponynuts.com/?srsltid=AfmBOor3bLIUGMRSEz-K6RuqGpZpLu3Re4-zI4piEslHpZokf5jOjhVw
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/onetrickponynuts/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-dana-72531658
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Show Links:
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- Questions or comments about the episode? Email Daniel at podcast@startupcpg.com
- Episode music by Super Fantastics
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A few years back when I ran a beverage company, we had to launch using those plastic sleeves to put our designs on the cans. |
| 0:08.0 | But they looked bad, the sleeves get stretched out, they don't cover the full can, and overall they just look and feel low quality. |
| 0:14.0 | Lucky for you, digital can printing technology has come so far over the last few years that now you can launch your beverage brand or new skews with a fully |
| 0:21.7 | printed look and it's at similar pricing to those plastic sleeves. |
| 0:25.3 | Our friends at CanWorks, which is the largest U.S.-based digital can printer, are happy to work with |
| 0:30.1 | our community at very low minimums, even one palette. |
| 0:32.9 | They've got locations in the East Coast, the West Coast, Texas. |
| 0:36.0 | Get in touch with them through our contact form. |
| 0:38.2 | It's at canworksprinting.com slash startup CPG. |
| 0:42.7 | Thank you. I think the kind of playbook on CPG has historically been you start in natural, then you go to conventional, then you go to club and it's like you follow these like steps. |
| 1:09.4 | And I was always kind of nervous about what was going to happen to us after natural. I'm like are people really going to pay eight dollars for this little jar and like do people really care about the Argentinian thing? And now I feel like we have more mass appeal. So we're talking to a couple of like you know the big club players for next year and the following year. And so, like, I don't think you have to |
| 1:28.3 | follow that playbook anymore, but I also do feel like we have this mass appeal that if you |
| 1:32.7 | want a brand to work long term, like you can't just plan the natural channel forever. So it's |
| 1:38.2 | giving me hope that we're, like, getting inbound from some of these bigger channels. And we'll |
| 1:41.9 | see. Hey, everybody. This is Caitlin Bricker, editor at Startup CPG. |
| 1:47.5 | We are back with another founder of Founder Feature. |
| 1:50.1 | Today we're talking with Lucy Dana, founder of One Trick Pony. |
| 1:53.8 | One Trick Pony is a two-inredient peanut butter made with Argentinian peanuts that's |
| 1:58.0 | literally turning the world of peanut butter upside down. |
| 2:01.6 | Lucy's solving the oil separation problem that everyone hates, and she's building a brand |
| 2:06.3 | that's gone from fighting for every retailer to getting inbound requests from the big players. |
| 2:11.5 | With videos hitting millions of views and jars hitting nearly a thousand shelves nationwide, |
... |
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