The Startup CPG Podcast

Morgan Murdock
The fermentation piece is like a whole journey because we have a. We have a sourdough starter that we've had and I had three years before, and then someone else had it three years before. So we have like a living sourdough starter that our bakery manager keeps alive, like an active and live thing. So there's some brand synergy happening and that's like a challenge in itself. Any manufacturer and like, unless they do sourdough already, that's going to be like, no, we don't do that. Like, I have to keep something alive, but it's just not comprehensible really. So right now we make everything in house. We self manufacture currently.

00:52
Grace Kennedy
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the startup CPT podcast. This is Grace and I'm here with another founder feature. Today I'm chatting with Morgan Murdoch, the founder of Unbothered Foods. Unbothered Foods is a unique sourdough cracker brand that's all about combining flavor with digestive health. Morgan is a registered dietitian with a background in clinical nutrition, and she shares her inspiration behind launching Unbothered, the challenges of making sourdough accessible for those with digestive sensitivities and how she's navigating the world of cpg. As someone with no CPG experience, we dive into everything from her fermentation process to how Unbothered Foods is differentiating itself within the crowded snacking market. I hope you enjoy this episode and as always, let me know what you think.

01:47
Grace Kennedy
Hello, everyone, this is Grace and today I am joined by Morgan Murdoch, the founder of Unbothered Foods. Welcome to the show, Morgan. Thank you.

01:58
Morgan Murdock
I'm so excited to be here. I listened to this podcast for a very long time and in the early days of when I was launching my brand. So it's fun to be on.

02:08
Grace Kennedy
Yes. Well, I'd love for you to introduce who is Unbothered Foods to our listeners.

02:14
Morgan Murdock
Yeah, so Unbothered Foods is a deliciously fermented sourdough cracker brand at the beginning of 2023. So just over a couple of years old. And yeah, we're founded by Morgan, a registered dietitian. My background is in clinical nutrition and I specialize in digestive health, which is what inspired Unbothered Foods. I wanted to make a product that my patients could enjoy right off the shelf and one that actually tasted really good.

02:46
Grace Kennedy
Yes. And it does actually taste very good, which, you know, often the healthy crackers are a little bit like cardboard. My dad's a huge fan of waza. Do you know that Cracker brand. No shade to them.

02:59
Morgan Murdock
Yeah, no shade to Wasa. We don't want to create a cracker.

03:02
Grace Kennedy
Right, Exactly. But listen, they have fans. My dad has waza every day.

03:06
Morgan Murdock
And then they've got snacks.

03:08
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, but I don't like it. And your records are really delicious. And they still have that kind of like crispy, crunchy texture that I feel like. Yeah, it's not the cardboard. Kind of like, you know, you're eating something healthy vibe.

03:20
Morgan Murdock
Yeah. That was really important to me, especially, I mean, when I was a clinical dietitian, seeing eight patients a day. And what mattered most to me is helping them to create a positive relationship with food. And there is so much loud noise online and social media and all this stuff about food in general. But seriously, if we can help foster a better relationship with food, then that helps change a lot of things, including your digestion. And food has to taste good for us to, like, feel positive about it. So. Yeah. I mean, especially in the clinical world, the food that's associated with that is. Yeah. I mean, cardboard. I even have, like, a pitch deck that says, like, an issue is that crackers taste like cardboard. I'm right there with you on that.

04:07
Morgan Murdock
So before I was going to launch anything, like, no matter what it was, it had to taste really good and be something that people wanted to keep in their house regularly, not something just for the sake of, like, okay, I'm on X, Y, Z diet. I should get this. And then you kind of get it once it doesn't taste that good, and then you buy it again. So taste was definitely the most important thing to me. So I appreciate you saying that.

04:30
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. I'm curious. How did you decide on not only crackers as the category you wanted to hone in on, but also what goes into your crackers? Because I think you guys do have a pretty unique formulation when it comes to crackers on the market, particularly, like.

04:44
Morgan Murdock
Healthy crackers, like we said. Yeah. So coming from a clinical background, I knew nothing about CPG before jumping into it. I knew that there needed to be a product that was able to be enjoyed conveniently in this specific area for irritable bowel syndrome. That was like. I worked with IBS girlies before, so specifically a lot of women that were on the low FODMAP diet. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but it's very niche for IBS people. Doctors tell people to go on it, but it's really hard to do.

05:16
Grace Kennedy
So.

05:16
Morgan Murdock
My inspiration was truly I wanted to make something that was low fodmap because when you're on low fodmap you can't have garlic, you can't have onion, you can't have like just lots of different things that are just regular healthy foods. But you have to restrict those for a certain amount of time and you reintegrate. But it's extremely effective. So it was this double edged sort of like people were seeing, they were feeling physically better, they were happier and all of this. But now I have to cook everything from scratch and I feel isolated and all of that. So I knew from a formulation standpoint I wanted it to be low fodmap to really target and on this area. And it coincided with during the pandemic, everyone loving sourdough and making sourdough. And now you see on the market there's more sourdough products.

06:01
Morgan Murdock
And in restaurants, like I feel like there's only sourdough bread. Like on when you go to brunch, it's always sourdough. So that sort of trend was happening. And if sourdough is fermented for over 12 hours, then it breaks down the carbohydrates enough to where it is low fodmap. We can talk more about the nerdy science with sourdough later. But was this happy moment and conversations with patients where it was like, okay, like you can't have these things, but you can have sourdough. So let's go to the farmer's market. Let's, you know, it became this like I was talking about earlier, there's like positive association with food and like what can we have? And here are the possibilities. So sourdough really became this thing that I was excited about and patients were excited about in general. And so I started making sourdough bread.

06:48
Morgan Murdock
And I was in Chicago at the time and we, I mean Chicago and pizza. And it was coming up to another Chicago summer, so I started making pizzas. They were sourdough pizzas. I made them low fodmap and didn't tell anyone. And I knew that I wanted to create a product. And after talking to a lot more industry people in cpg, everyone was basically like, you need to start with a shelf stable product if you can, because of the cost of X, Y, Z, like fresh versus shelf stable. All of these things that like if you don't know, you just don't know. So I'm thankful that I really started by talking to as many people as possible before just picking like let's do a frozen sourdough pizza. Because that's what I wanted to do to start.

07:34
Morgan Murdock
And hey, maybe someday, like, we'll get back to that point. Like, that could be a really cool grand extension in the future when we're as big as simple meals. But crackers became a clearer way for me to start just because I knew I like to include crackers and just like my snacking and it would be a part, like, crackers were just part of a lot of what I would recommend to patients for, like a balanced snack. Like crackers carbohydrate, pair it with the protein and like, that felt like a pantry staple that sourdough could be, like integrated into. And it also felt just like something I could start without a bunch of funding. So I started making some in my house and then got a shared into a shared kitchen, started doing farmer's markets and like, you know, kind of started in that route.

08:18
Morgan Murdock
But I think crackers became clear I was potentially going to start doing dried sourdough pasta as a potential first product. But again, I think crackers, I'm a very, like, visual person. I could wrap my head around making a cracker more than, like making a bunch of pasta. So that's how I chose to start. And yeah, of course, you find out later crackers are really hard to manufacture and like, but just, you just wouldn't know that when you started.

08:45
Grace Kennedy
Totally. There's so much you don't know. And I think it's great that you did talk to people who steered you in some of the direction that was helpful. And then of course, there's always hidden surprises with whatever category you decide to enter. I'm curious to hear a little bit more about how you are differentiating unbothered foods. Like A, among the very large cracker category, but also B, within that, like, the sourdough nature of unbothered foods and how you're speaking about that to customers. Because like you said, sourdough has sort of become a buzzword, has become something that's very popular over the last few years. So how are you sort of making it clear to consumers, like, what is special about the sourdough in unbothered foods?

09:28
Morgan Murdock
Yes, that's a great question and something that needs a lot of education on because it's sort of sourdough washing is happening where we're just like putting sourdough on everything and it's not the real version of sourdough. And because sourdough is associated with like, improved gut health, people will just see it and think like, oh, better gut health. If it says the Word sourdough on it. So, yes, definitely want to dive into that. I would say first with the cracker category specifically, if you just go to a store and look at the cracker aisle, it's not that cute. So I would say something that our brand stands out in is our branding. So that's something that we really wanted to have a more like, light and fun approach to crackers and more of like a cool snack versus kind of a boring pantry staple.

10:17
Morgan Murdock
So that's something that we are trying to do from like a packaging standpoint. And we're also in a pouch versus a box, which is a little bit different. Yes, it's more cost effective as well. And then from a sourdough standpoint, that's like a huge topic. So the way that we try to stand out. Well, first, there aren't very many sourdough crackers that you'll see. Patagonia Provisions bought moonshot a couple years ago. So now Patagonia has but sourdough air quotes for those that are just listening. And there's a handful. There's some really great ones. Georgia Sourdough, I think, is another brand. And the Sourdough Project in Austin. And so there's some smaller brands like me that are really focusing on the real sourdough component, which means that it's actually firming fermented for X amount of time.

11:05
Morgan Murdock
And for me, I knew my benchmark was at least 12 hours because I wanted to meet that low fodmap line where I know, okay, if it's fermented for X amount of time, then I know back to my old patient days. I know that they could enjoy it. So that was my benchmark. But we're still working on how we communicate that. I think there's so many things when you are a brand, a smaller brand at my size that you're trying to figure out, what do we put our resources into? How do we communicate? Like, we could do a whole massive campaign on like this versus that sourdough and, like, really dive into it. But that is just a really big lift if it's just me and my social media person. We're trying to get our brand out there.

11:46
Morgan Murdock
Should we dive into the sourdough piece more and more? Should we? You know, it's just hard to, like, navigate how to explain things to. And you only have their attention for like three seconds. So how do you talk about the science of sourdough in that amount of time? So we're figuring that out. I'll say up front, but the way that people can know that a sourdough product is real is that if the packaging is talking about a long fermentation, everyone will say it in different ways because again, there's not a regulated way to say it. Like anyone could just put sourdough on their packaging. And a lot of times, like most of the time that means that they will just be adding either actual sourdough starter or sourdough flavor to it to give it that like sour, tangy flavor.

12:32
Morgan Murdock
But if they're not fermenting it, doing a long fermentation, it's not actually like breaking down the components in wheat or adding the probiotics to it that help with digestion that sourdough claims. So it's not like it makes them like bad foods or anything like that. But it doesn't have the gut friendly components. So it's important for customers to know that because I feel like people are just throwing their money at sourdough stuff. But really asking the questions and like looking at the bag and seeing if it's fermented is really important. And then another tip on that is if there is yeast in the ingredients, again, not a bad thing. But if there's yeast in the ingredients, that means it's been quick fermented and not long fermented, meaning it hasn't had time to like give it the gut friendly benefits.

13:20
Morgan Murdock
So it's more expensive to ferment because it's time and it's hard and, you know, it's not an easy thing to do. So most brands are taking that shortcut because people just don't know and there's not regulation on it. So all that to say, like, we're always trying to figure out how to communicate that to customers and how to make that a standout thing. And I do think people care about it, but it's one of those things where they're like, oh, I didn't know that was a thing.

13:47
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, totally. It's. And I feel like this happens in so many different products. Like there are these buzzwords of the moment where you don't actually like or I think about even like beauty categories where they'll say they have an ingredient in them but it's not at an active percentage. So it's not actually going to do anything. But people buy it because they're like, oh, it has niacinamide or whatever. And so I think it and it. But it's hard because nobody's really that interested in science.

14:09
Morgan Murdock
Yeah.

14:10
Grace Kennedy
Like when we're buying things. Yeah, we're just kind of going on vibes. One thing I was curious about that you were mentioning is, like, the challenge of making sure it's fermented for over 12 hours. And how do you navigate that in manufacturing, particularly as you are two years in and like scaling into more retail locations? How do you navigate that with, like a manufacturer or even self manufacturing? Like, with that sort of constraint?

14:36
Morgan Murdock
Yeah, I mean, it definitely makes it way harder. Most crackers are just like a mix. A mix and bake dough. Like, you know, you mix it in a big mixer, you put it on the line, and it's cut into crackers. The fermentation piece is like a whole journey because we have a sourdough starter that we've had and I had three years before, and then someone else had it three years before. So we have like a living sourdough starter that our bakery manager keeps alive. It's like an active and live thing.

15:07
Grace Kennedy
Does it have a name?

15:08
Morgan Murdock
Her name is Olivia and it is named after Olivia Rodrigo. We would play her, I mean, and I used to be in the bakery, you know, for 16 hours a day. And I am not in the bakery now, thankfully. But we listened to a ton of Olivia Rodrigo and her first album's name was Sour and then her second albums was Guts. Okay. So there's some brand synergy happening there. And I feel like Unbothered is like.

15:37
Grace Kennedy
That's her vibe. Totally.

15:40
Morgan Murdock
Yeah.

15:40
Grace Kennedy
Yes.

15:41
Morgan Murdock
Anyway, it's silly, but we listened to her a lot in the bakery for just like some fun, silly music while were baking crackers for hours. So, yes, we have Olivia who stays alive. And that's like a challenge in itself. Any manufacturer and like, unless they do sourdough already, that's gonna be like, no, we don't do that. I have to keep something alive, but it's just not comprehensible, really. So right now we make everything in house. We self manufacture currently. And I mean, it's been hard to develop that process, but it's just. That's all that I've known. So now we have a system down, you know, keeping the starter alive, and we add active starter into our dough. So the dough itself, like, it'll double in size when it ferments.

16:28
Morgan Murdock
And so, yeah, that has its own challenges, especially because when you're doing a fermented product, it matters. The temperature outside, even that will impact what's happening inside the bakery. Like humidity of the room, timing of when you feed the starter. There's all of these things you can't just. And Actually, a huge hurdle is figuring out like, okay, since we're making our dough ahead of time, we can't do like last minute batches. Like, we can't say. So say I was at a farmer's market or something and I sold out immediately and I had something the next day. I wouldn't have time with the fermentation component to like run into the bakery and whip up a batch for the next day. It has to be like planned out in the future, right?

17:17
Morgan Murdock
So that was really hard because you think like, oh, I can just like run in, do some extra hours and like make up, just make more product. But that had to be planned like five days ago. So from a forecasting standpoint, when I was much smaller even than this, that is really hard because you can't just skip the fermentation because that's the entire point. So, yeah, I would say that was really hard to figure out the right cadence and baking schedule. And now that's normal and you know, we've got that down. But the next big phase is we're starting to work with a co manufacturer actually soon.

17:55
Morgan Murdock
This is a fun and scary in between zone for me because in a couple of weeks we're doing our first like big official run with our co man, which finding a co man that was willing to ferment dough is a whole nother conversation. The middle zone of like, okay, I know how it works in my own small shared kitchen bakery, but how can we take these steps and translate them to steps for a coman? And with like 20 to 30 people that are going to be doing this? That's been my biggest challenge to date, I would say.

18:31
Grace Kennedy
How are you preparing to kind of release that control a little bit and give it over to the coman?

18:38
Morgan Murdock
Still feeling like I have control. Yeah, I don't know. I'm figuring that out. I don't know. I think I'll feel better once it's like happening and things are in distribution and like the pieces are coming together because like I've said, we're doing everything in house. So we like ship from our bakery, we deliver from our bakery, we, you know, it's there. But now when you're working with the co man's going to ship to a distributor or third party logistics and then there's just all these like pieces up in the air that are supposed to somehow work together. And I'm not at the point now where I can trust it because I haven't seen it happen because we haven't started working together yet. So I don't know. Plans are in place. Will they be executed?

19:20
Morgan Murdock
Well, I'm going to find out in about two weeks, so we'll see. I'll have a better answer for you then. But at least like the comment I was able to find. And I'm so thankful for this place because they were are willing to start small with me. They're also, we're willing to learn. Like I've been, I've flown out there three or four times to train them on sourdough and they don't know what it is and are freaked out by fermentation, which is fair because it's not normal to them. But I'm still like they haven't done a run or a practice run without me yet because I'm going and guiding them and I'll be there again for the first few runs. So I still have my hands on it. Like I'm not letting them do it alone yet.

20:04
Morgan Murdock
So it'll be a process, like each phase of it. But I'm interested to see how it goes because now like the most crackers we can make in a day is like 240 bags. But now when I'm flying there one day, we'll do like 3,500 bags.

20:21
Grace Kennedy
So that's awesome.

20:22
Morgan Murdock
Wow, this is great. But also just a lot of dough to manage, a lot of things fermenting to manage the train. So it's an interesting time.

20:31
Grace Kennedy
Absolutely. And what made you feel ready to make the leap into a CO man and like, was it tied to, you know, retail expansion or you know, DTC or. Yeah, what made you feel ready to be like, okay, we can't keep self manufacturing.

20:46
Morgan Murdock
So crackers specifically are really expensive to manufacture on a small level because you need like we have a regular rack, not even like a roll in rack oven. We have like a 10 rack oven where you're like taking sheets in and out and it's very physical, it's very like, you know, and right now we hand stretch our dough. So you know, this cracker over here might be slightly thinner than this cracker which means the baking time is going to be different on the crackers. So it's like reaching in like, okay, these are done, like put this rack back in. It's very hands on. So it takes a lot of time. And I'm paying people a livable hourly wage in Chicago, you know, so it's really expensive to make crackers at this small of a scale.

21:39
Morgan Murdock
So almost because I was able to find a CO man, that was able to start small enough for me. It's just more cost effective, like, without even taking retail, anything else into consideration. So it just makes sense already. It wasn't even like, okay, I got this massive order from somewhere and I have to do this. That's kind of part of it. But that's what gave me kind of some confidence to do it. But it just makes sense economically for crackers specifically, which is weird. You would think that wouldn't be the case. But, you know, with a massive, like, tunnel oven and all of this stuff, they can obviously be way more efficient. And because the minimum order quantities were smaller, like, that still made sense from a pricing standpoint. So, yeah, that's basically the why. And we have some exciting stuff coming up.

22:27
Morgan Murdock
We're talking with some bigger retailers we're looking to get on Amazon in the next couple of months. And so it was really too to just prepare for being able to say yes to things that we want to be able to say yes to. Because I could be talking to whoever right now, Whole Foods and Sprouts, but if they say yes, I can't say yes because I can't make enough crackers. So it was kind of too like a preemptive, like, we'll call it manifesting, like, I'm going to get these yeses and I'm going to be able to say yes. Now that we can meet that demand.

22:59
Grace Kennedy
Yes. Oh, my God.

23:00
Morgan Murdock
Well, I.

23:01
Grace Kennedy
If Whole Foods and Sprouts are listening in the Philadelphia area, I need Unbothered Foods in my Whole Foods and my Sprouts here in Philadelphia. So if you're a buyer and you're listening to this, you've got at least one customer in Philadelphia. So I'll buy them out. Yeah, right. What has been your approach thus far to retail? Like, I know you're in a variety of different states, but it sounds like you're. And you're having conversations with larger retailers now. But yeah. What has been your sort of strategy with retail these last two years you've been in business and also going forward?

23:33
Morgan Murdock
Yeah, I think now at this point, since we're in this transition period, that will change a lot. Previously it was really just like, we are on Fair and we're based in Chicago. So I feel like those two things alone, there's lots of stores that, you know, we landed in Chicago and we are discoverable on Fair and have had some pretty good traction there. So that just organically was enough with what we could do from a self manufacturing standpoint. Like, I Didn't want to go out and pitch all of this again if I couldn't say yes. So it was kind of more organically. People found us. Or like, you know, I would walk into a local Chicago store, or we're in freshtime, for example, which is our biggest, like, store chain that we're in, just in the Illinois stores.

24:22
Morgan Murdock
And, you know, were able to pitch through them through this, like, small incubator program that were able to just get in the Chicago store to start. And then were expanded to all seven of the Illinois stores. So that was like, okay, this is manageable. That's manageable. Just kind of like slowly building, moving forward. It's crazy because I'm like, okay. With a manufacturer, it feels like the world is your oyster in a sense. It's not really, but it's just like, okay, we have so much more inventory we can work with, and it's picking the route you want to go of. Okay, am I going to just continue to grind and bootstrap and get myself in front of buyers and show up at Expo west and have meetings and all of this, or am I going to work with a broker?

25:06
Morgan Murdock
Or am I, you know, whatever. X, Y, Z. So I'm a little bit still figuring out what the next phase of retail expansion is going to look like, because that also, you know, you have to know if you're going to have enough money to be able to support the expansions that you're doing. So I still want to be conservative with how we grow, and I don't want to say yes too many big things too soon, because that's how a lot of businesses go under. Just they want the shiny look, getting all the Whole Foods, but they don't have, whatever, $300,000 to support the marketing or whatever around that. So, yeah, I'm just. I'm trying to be smart about it. And my goal with it would be to continue to growing in the Midwest region because I feel like, okay, that's home region.

25:49
Morgan Murdock
I can win. There's. But it's interesting to balance because obviously Sourdough in, like, California is. Has been trendy there for a long time, and that's like a really clear customer base. And then also we have a bunch of stores in New York. So I don't know, it's hard. It's really easy to get distracted with, like, all the different shiny things. And it's important to, yeah, stick to what your goals are because there's just too many things to go after. And then there's Amazon, which is like a whole nother beat.

26:16
Grace Kennedy
Totally.

26:17
Morgan Murdock
Yeah. Yeah.

26:18
Grace Kennedy
What you mentioned to this the every founders challenge of like making sure you have enough money to like support a retail expansion and things like that. And how have you approached funding for unbothered foods? Like are you bootstrapped? What's been your approach?

26:33
Morgan Murdock
Yep. So I started it with. I started totally on my own. Yeah, totally bootstrapped. I started by making like, you know, 10 bags of crackers and then 20 bags of crackers and then grown it from there. I was able early ish on to take out a small business loan through like a community organization, which was helpful to get some like small equipment that I needed early on. I'm very like risk averse. So even taking on a small. It was like a $20,000 loan that is was still freaky to me because well, my husband and I, we're still like if the business goes under, like we still owe $20,000 or whatever the case may be, which is scary, especially in the early days. And again, clinical background, I didn't come in thinking you're gonna need a lot of money.

27:20
Morgan Murdock
This I was just like, well, it's crackers. Like we'll just make crackers and then you make money on the crackers to make more crackers. So yeah, for the first two years really just did. I had that small business loan and then we personally put in just a little bit of money to just start the business and was able to function off of that for a while. But then knew last year that I needed to figure out some level of fundraising. Just going into, okay, I'm going to start working with a manufacturer, I'm going to start working with a distributor and like, yeah, you just start needing more amounts of money. I started with doing a we funder round last year. It probably took me about nine months. We raised $220,000 on it, which is exciting. Yeah. So it was just.

28:06
Morgan Murdock
It's funny because you're like, oh, it's a small round. And like I never would have thought I would have needed that much money when I started just because I had no idea about the world at all. But yeah, I closed on that a couple of months ago. So that adds into the like, okay, we have, you know, a little chunk of money. We have our manufacturer set up. Like how do we execute this in. In a way that is the smartest. It's very easy to burn whatever money you have. I know any founders listening will know that it's just, it can be there and gone. So soon, so. And I know I'll have to start, like, I just investment conversations. Like, you just continue your relationship with your investors and more investors because you will need more later. That's just how it works.

28:47
Morgan Murdock
But I felt like We Funder was a good first step for me because investing and anything in finance honestly is hard for me to wrap my head around. And We Funder felt like, okay, this is something that I can send to people I know, our fans or audience we call our sour squad. Like, I could include the sour squad. And it felt like something you could kind of rally around and get people excited about. And yeah, it was a good experience. It was still really hard. Like, I still had to. It wasn't like, you just post on We Funder and like, people just start investing.

29:21
Morgan Murdock
Like, I still am pitching investors or people or whatever, like, all the time and having those good or bad or awkward conversations, that was at least something that I could like, put out there and present and make me feel confident with what I was moving forward with. So, yeah, absolutely.

29:39
Grace Kennedy
And there's so many different routes to go with investing and funding, but you have to do what feels most feasible to you. And I've definitely heard from people that, who've done We Funder or things like that, like, you know, that went well for them, but it was like a daily thing. You're having to, like, pitch and work on and market and like, it's no joke. I've heard people say, like, however long your campaign is for, you need to be sure that, like, you can commit to that, like, whole time to, like, marketing the campaign.

30:04
Morgan Murdock
Oh, yeah.

30:05
Grace Kennedy
Another question I had is about being a solo founder. And when you're at the places that do kind of feel like crossroads, like, okay, am I going to go for the coman? Or okay, am I going to do the We Funder? What do you, like, rely on? You know, I think being a solo founder can be really hard because it's just you making the decisions. And so, yeah, how do you make those decisions? And like, do you have mentors or, like, people in your corner that you can go to? Like, how do you manage being a solo founder, basically?

30:33
Morgan Murdock
I appreciate that question. It's not easy being the one that makes every decision. Like, if you're. Yeah, you are the decision maker for everything. And that feels like a lot of pressure. And I put pressure on myself anyway to be successful. And I think once you start bringing in other people with money that they've given you, it's another level of like, okay, what's the smartest way to execute. So the way that I do it is, yeah. I mean, I have mentors that I will call. I have a handful. It's like, I have a mentor or two for, like, different categories of things in different levels of, like, okay, this person over here had a really big brand, and they would be a good person to call. If I have an opportunity with this retailer, does it make sense to invest in that?

31:26
Morgan Murdock
Does it make sense to do that? Big leap. This person I would call because they have that sort of bigger brand experience versus a mentor that I have in Chicago, like, starting my brand, totally bootstrapping. How do I figure out how to ferment 5,000 pounds of dough? They would have more of, like, okay, how do you actually make these little operational things happen, These little manufacturing ideas? Like, this person is the one that I would call for that. So I think it's. Yeah. I mean, I would not be doing this if I didn't have people that I have, like, kept a relationship with that. I just know that they will be excited to talk to me about whatever thing it is.

32:09
Morgan Murdock
And I try not to take advantage of them or whatever it is, but have really specific questions when they come up that I know that they'll be excited to talk about in that specific area, not just, like, any part of the business. So that's how I've gone about it, and I think it's been helpful for me so far. Right now, I'm the only one. Like, I don't have anyone. I mean, my bakers are the only ones that work for me, and that's about to end. And I have, you know, I have someone that does design. I have someone that does photography, but still, it's not. I'm the only one that's, like, doing it and pulling the strings.

32:43
Morgan Murdock
I'll be excited for someday, you know, once we're big enough to be able to hire people or bring people on that are experts in these areas that I can be, like, great. Sounds like you can figure this out.

32:57
Grace Kennedy
We.

32:57
Morgan Murdock
I don't know how close we are to that. I think probably another raise, another round will hopefully, like, create some opportunity around getting some smarter people than me in here to figure out how to keep growing it. But, yeah, that's how I navigate it right now.

33:11
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, it makes total sense. And I actually think is great advice when, like, thinking about mentors or working with mentors, like, knowing the specific people to go to for what specific things. So you're not just, like, asking a mentor a question that they actually might not be able to help you with. And then they just feel kind of like, why did you just waste my time? So I think that's actually great advice, even in just thinking about how to work with mentors. One question I always like to ask too, about mentors, because I do think they can feel kind of elusive, is like, how do you find a mentor?

33:38
Morgan Murdock
Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Well, a lot of times, I don't know, I feel like mentors find you too. I think I've been lucky to where I have a couple mentors that I'm like, so thankful for that have found me, which I'm so thankful for that. Whether it's through like a pitch competition or just finding me on LinkedIn or whatever the case may be. I've been lucky to have a couple key mentors that have found me. But I think that also, like, takes you putting yourself in a position of like, being open to that, like participating in events and talking to people and being engaged in networking. So it doesn't just come out of thin air, I guess, but being open to, like, people that are. You kind of feel like that magnetic, like, synergy with.

34:24
Morgan Murdock
There's definitely people that I've been like, I want this person to be my mentor. And it just doesn't feel like totally right. I don't know, it sounds so like, woo. But there's people that you'll come across, I think, as you're putting yourself out there and growing the brand, where you're like, okay, this person is awesome. And I think they might think I'm awesome. And we can have that sort of relationship. We both feel like we're getting something from it. But I, I mean, like I said early on, I talked to so many people before I started the brand and I continue to do that, just talking, reaching out to people. Like, hey, like at Expo west, there's this brand, Sunny, who I think is the cutest, like Tahini Dip brand, they have salad dressings now they're just releasing.

35:07
Morgan Murdock
I reach out to them because I just think they're a, an amazing brand that's kind of that next level ahead of me type of thing. And I'm not talking about Nora, who owns it as a mentor or anything, but I think it takes you kind of reaching out and putting yourself out there and being like, hey, like, I see this in you. And you know, I would love to connect, I'd love to meet you. And I think just getting on a call, getting on a zoom or meeting for coffee is a good way to feel out like if it's going to be a positive relationship, it needs to be mutual and it shouldn't feel forced at all on either end. I feel like that almost comes naturally. Like, hey, I'd love to.

35:41
Morgan Murdock
To meet up regularly for me has almost from the mentors first before me asking like, hey, will you be my mentor? Which is kind of like weird sounding. But I also have advice that like, not everyone should be a mentor. Like, not everyone should be a mentor that wants to be your mentor. I don't know, I just get overwhelmed with people that are just like, they just consistently say, like, tell me how I can help you. And that's all they say. That's too broad. I need help with like people have their specialty areas and I can kind of like glean different things from. But yeah, I think make sure it feels right for you too because I think if you have something that people are excited about, there's going to be lots of people that want to be involved.

36:22
Morgan Murdock
But make sure it's the people that you want to be involved with is definitely important, I think.

36:28
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, I think that's great advice. My last question that I like to ask everyone is just how can the startup CPG community and our listeners support unbothered foods as you continue to grow and expand?

36:41
Morgan Murdock
I think if you haven't tried our crackers, get some crackers. We could create some kind of discount code for the startup CPG world to put in here. That would be fun. But yeah, I'd love for you to try the crackers and compare them to other crackers. That's always fun and I think a great way to see like, how we do stand out. And if you're a buyer, I'd love to talk to you. Yeah, I just get into the sour squad. You can join our newsletter. You can follow us on Instagram. It's fun. We're. I mean, I'm just trying to figure out how to do this. So we try to be, you know, transparent and candid on Instagram and just like show our journey. So come hang out.

37:22
Grace Kennedy
I love it. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show, Morgan. It was a pleasure to learn more about unbothered foods. And yeah, everyone go try. They're delicious crackers.

37:31
Morgan Murdock
Thanks, Grace. Appreciate it.

37:34
Grace Kennedy
All right, everyone, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, it would help us out so much if you left a 5 star review on ratethispodcast.com startupcpg I am Grace Kennedy, the host of the founder feature series. So feel free to add me on LinkedIn or reach out to me on Slack. I always on the hunt for new and exciting brands to feature. And if you're a potential sponsor who would like to appear on the podcast, please email partnershipsartupcpg.com and finally, as a reminder for anyone listening, if you haven't already, we would love for you to join our community on Slack. You can sign up via our website startupcpg.com.