How Two Friends Built a CPG Brand While Working Full-Time | Jared & Emily | Born To Build Ep. 9

What does it take to build a physical product in an industry you’ve never worked in, while still working full-time? In this episode of Born To Build, I sit down with Sweetr co-founders Jared Markowitz and Emily Gamza, two lifelong friends who turned an idea for a better everyday sweetener into a CPG brand. Neither Jared nor Emily came from the CPG world. They built Sweetr while navigating full-time careers, learning product development, manufacturing, branding, distribution and customer acquisition as they went. We talk about what it’s really like to build a company with your best friend, how they divide responsibilities based on their strengths, the difference between creating a great product and getting people to buy it, and how they decide where to spend their time and money while building something from the ground up. Jared and Emily also share what they’ve learned about entering an unfamiliar industry, figuring things out in real time and what it takes to turn an idea into something people can actually hold, use and buy. 00:00 Building Sweetr in 8 Months 00:28 Meet Jared & Emily 03:00 From Lifelong Friends to Co-Founders 04:49 Growing Up Around Entrepreneurship 08:01 The Idea Behind Sweetr 10:37 Saying Yes to the Idea 13:20 The Original Idea Wasn't the Final Product 15:47 Building a CPG Product From Scratch 18:12 Knowing When to Pivot 20:04 Developing & Taste Testing the Product 22:38 Use Your Network, Then Expand It 24:20 Knowing When It's Time to Launch 26:04 Bootstrapping While Working Full-Time 28:30 The Dream of Building Full-Time 30:29 Building With Different Strengths 32:27 Finding Their Actual Customer 35:21 Becoming the Face of Your Business 38:52 Knowing When to Turn Down Investment 40:40 Rapid-Fire: Co-Founder Edition 42:24 Were You Born To Build? 42:42 Where to Find Sweetr + BTB20 Guest: Jared Markowitz & Emily Gamza, Co-Founders of Sweetr Website: https://getsweetr.com Enjoy 20% off with code BTB20 Instagram: Instagram: getsweetr Listen & Subscribe: BornToBuildPodcast.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1JtPgY3... Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Follow Born To Build: Instagram: borntobuildpodcast TikTok: UCjTOsLFz2R4L3SiLj11ipLw Music: https://tinyurl.com/3pepwnc