The Startup CPG Podcast

Maxi Heidenblut
So our target audience and where we get the most demand from is millennial moms, basically, who are shopping for their kids. We see a lot of moms reaching out and buying our candy for their kids because no dyes and no funny aftertaste and less sugar. So it's more in the natural channel. I would say Whole Foods would obviously be a great ban to be in because that's exactly where our target audience is. But it's also for millennials and gen zers that want to reduce their sugar consumption, but they don't want to have any fake sugars. And there's actually a recent very interesting study from the International Food Information Council, the IFIC, and they had a food and health survey from 2024.

00:52
Maxi Heidenblut
And what they found is that especially younger Americans, millennials and Gen Zs prefer moderate amounts of sugar over those fake sugars, those sugar substitutes. And the reason is that it just better.

01:05
Grace Kennedy
Hello everyone and welcome back to the startup CPG podcast.

01:10
Grace Kennedy
This is Grace and I'm here with another founder feature. Today I'm talking to Maxi, the founder of Happy Candy, a better for you candy company based in New York that provides delicious vegan candy with 70% less sugar than traditional candy without using any fake sugars. They use non GMO ingredients and natural colors to provide premium quality gummy candy that is truly delicious. Happy Candy just launched last November, but they are already gaining traction in the retail world with regional distribution and conversations with buyers from national chains. I loved learning more about Maxi and her delicious candy. So I hope you enjoy this episode and as always, let me know what you think. Hello everyone and welcome back to the start of CPG podcast. This is Grace and today I'm so excited to be joined by Maxi, the founder of Happy Candy.

02:09
Grace Kennedy
Welcome to the show, Maxi.

02:10
Maxi Heidenblut
Thank you, Grace. I'm excited to be here.

02:12
Grace Kennedy
So excited to have you. And we actually are recording this on Valentine's Day. This will come out later in the year. But Maxi's wonderful candy brand has beautiful little heart shaped candy and were just saying how we really should have put this out on Valentine's Day, but get them next time. But anyway, would love for you to introduce Happy Candy to our listeners so they can figure out who you are.

02:34
Maxi Heidenblut
Yeah, absolutely. So Happy Candy is truly better for you. Gummy Candy, we use 70% less sugar and no fake sugars. So there's no stevia, no monk fruit, no allulose, no erythritol, none of that in our candy. We simply use less sugar. And as I mentioned, it's 70% less than on average, your Haribo, Sour Patch Kids, Yum Earth, and all the other candy brands out there. So it tastes really good. And all the ingredients are non gmo. We don't use any dyes, so it's only natural colors. And our Gummy Candy is vegan, so we don't use any gelatin as well. So overall, it's a really yummy and healthy gummy candy that comes in heart shapes, as you just mentioned. So it is the perfect Valentine's gift, actually. And the name Happy Candy gives it away. We're all about good vibes, happiness.

03:27
Maxi Heidenblut
I actually came up with the idea during the pandemic and I thought we all need some more happy moments. And that's how the name of the brand came together.

03:36
Grace Kennedy
That is awesome. I love that. And it's funny, last year, the start of CBG team, were talking about how a lot of this, like, better for you candy does have all of these things like allulose or other sort of fake sugars. But how? And were all like, oh, these are so yummy. These are so good. And then we would have like pretty intense indigestion after eating these better for you candies. And we all were saying how we thought it was hopefully going to be a trend that people would be using real sugar but thoughtfully in products and thinking about the ways that could be possible. And that seems like exactly what happy candy is doing.

04:10
Maxi Heidenblut
So. Yes, that's exactly right. I myself, when I tried better for you gummy candy initially was really disappointed with not only the flavor and taste of the candy. So usually there's a funny aftertaste from those fake sugars if you think about stevia and monk fruit, but then also the fact that they cause a stomach ache and you feel bloated and you get gas and all of these side effects. That really bothered me. And that's why I set out to create a better for you gummy candy without any of these fake sugars.

04:40
Grace Kennedy
Yes. It's so important and exciting to have on the market and to also have something that actually tastes good and is fun and sort of joyous in its flavors. And I'm curious, when you were coming up with this idea, were you at all coming from a CPG background and how did you decide, okay, I have this idea to create a better for you candy and I'm actually going to do it?

05:02
Maxi Heidenblut
Yeah, that's a great question. So my background is actually in asset management on the finance side, so not in cpg. But I've always been interested in nutrition science and in the food space. And I did a certificate in nutrition science at Stanford on the side and just developed this passion for food and how food can be your medicine or it can make you sick. And I actually myself was diagnosed with an autoimmune issue. And so I had to make healthier food choices. And as part of that, I was working with a nutrition scientist and learned so much about what food can do for you and what impact it has on your health, your body, your well being. And so that's why I decided to do something in cpg.

05:46
Maxi Heidenblut
And because, you know, I'm German by origin, I grew up in Germany eating a lot of Haribo when I was younger. So I really love gummy candy. But because of that autoimmune issue, I had to stop eating it. And I said to myself, I have to create a better product. And as I just mentioned, the existing better for you options out there were just not cutting it for me. So that's why I created this new, pretty differentiated better for you gummy candy.

06:12
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. I'm so curious, like, how do you make a candy with 70% less sugar and still have it taste good? And how did you set upon that journey to create that? Like, how did you do it?

06:23
Maxi Heidenblut
Yeah, that's another great question, especially if your background is finance and rcpg. So I basically just started cold calling manufacturers and indicating that I'm interested to launch this brand. Some of them thought I was crazy. Some of them were like, yes, let's work on this together. And so I found a great manufacturer who I developed this formula with. I told them what I needed and what I wanted to avoid, which are these fake sugars. And so we iterated on that and it took us a good year to get to the perfect formula. But essentially we're using glucose syrup in our product, which is the sugar component, but so much less that it comes to 70% less than your average gummy candy, which is per 50 grams of gummy candy, 29 grams of sugar. If you think about that's just so much.

07:09
Maxi Heidenblut
And we give that to our children and we have it ourselves and we're just simply putting in less sugar. And it's similar to what unreal snacks does in chocolate. If you're familiar with them, they simply use less sugar. And we're doing the same thing with gummy candy.

07:24
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. I'm sure it was daunting though, to send these cold emails to manufacturers as a total newcomer to the industry. And I'm curious, like, how it was being a newcomer in this industry as you were launching Happy Candy because I know so many founders, you know, I find it to be more the exception that somebody has a CPG background and founds a CPG company than it is that people don't have a CPG background and go all in. So how was it for you to be a newcomer in this space?

07:54
Maxi Heidenblut
Yeah, it was really hard in the beginning because you're drinking from the fire hose, you're trying to learn. I didn't have an established network yet, so what I found to be most helpful is connecting with other founders and veterans in the industry. And actually startup CPG has been a great help in doing so, connecting with other founders and experts in the field and just asking questions and learning. But it took a while for me to get to a good understanding of how the industry works, how to navigate it, because it's very different from the finance and asset management industry. But yeah, just learning by connecting with people, asking questions. And when I was reaching out to those manufacturers initially, what I completely underestimated is they know you don't have that knowledge.

08:38
Maxi Heidenblut
So you really have to make sure you talk to as many as you can to compare the pricing, to compare the formulas that they can offer, the ingredients they're using, and learning, you're learning from every conversation you're having with the manufacturer and especially on the pricing. And what I back then Learned is the MOQs, the minimum order quantities, which are typically very high. So it means that even for, you know, if you wanted to start just trying out how that product will resonate with the market, you will have to invest a lot because There are these MOQs which I was not aware of before I set out on that journey. So I learned a lot in the last couple of years as I was working on this product and brand.

09:19
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, and as you were developing Happy Candy, the product, did you keep working your full time job and are you, I mean, are you still working it? I actually don't know.

09:29
Maxi Heidenblut
Yes.

09:29
Grace Kennedy
Yeah.

09:29
Maxi Heidenblut
So New York City is a very expensive city to live in and we're based in New York City. Actually One of our SKUs is called Big Apple for that reason. It's green and red apple flavors and we call it Big Apple because we're from New York City. But yeah, I had to keep my job and also to finance not only the operations, but then also just my living expenses. And what I did is basically work with freelancers to help me wherever I needed help. So a designer who's a freelancer gets paid, you know, on the go for these projects to help me to get where I need to be.

10:00
Maxi Heidenblut
The same with social media and other areas of the business where I needed help to basically maximize my efficiency because I only had a limited amount of time that I could dedicate to the business directly. So, yeah, I had to keep my day jobs.

10:15
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, I mean, I think that's really common. And I've even heard from founders who kind of immediately left their day jobs. And then they. They said in hindsight they wish they had kept the day job because it is so useful to have that income coming in and not have to worry about paying yourself when at first there's really not money coming in. So since you got recently launched this last November, and how did you approach that launch into, you know, the world after you have been developing your baby for, you know, a few years at that point? So how did you approach that launch and what have you seen since then?

10:47
Maxi Heidenblut
Yeah, so that was actually really interesting because we tried something different, which was to hand out free samples to people that are interested to try the product. And what we did is we started with an online campaign where were partnering with influencers and offering free samples, and they would just cover the shipping cost to get the product in as many people's hands as possible to get feedback and also for them to get to know the brand and the product and then hopefully reorder. So that was a really interesting experience because I spent weekends packing these because we had a lot of demand, which was great. But I basically spent my entire couple of weekends just packing these free samples and sending those to hundreds of consumers.

11:33
Maxi Heidenblut
But that was a great way to not only get the product out, get initial feedback, but then also grow our newsletter subscribers, our social media followers. And that was our initial launch. We then also attended the winter fancy food show. We were actually in the startup CPG area, which was such a great experience because you had all these buyers coming and looking for innovative brands. So it was the exact right place to be for us at that show. But that was kind of basically two months after we officially launched and we had that free sample campaign, and that really accelerated our conversations with retailers. As you just mentioned, we launched in November, but in parallel to that free sample campaign, which is D2C, we also grew B2B by getting into independent retailers.

12:20
Maxi Heidenblut
So we're in over 50 locations now after being in business for three and a half months, which we're really excited about. We're in California, we're in New York, we're in Illinois and we continue to grow fast. And then the Fancy food show just gave us created connections to national buyers of national retailers. So we're having those conversations and seeing if we can start with a regional launch. Launch maybe and trying to basically get a bigger footprint in retail.

12:46
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a strategy I often hear is starting regionally and then going nationally. And I'm curious how you are supporting some of these independent stores that are stocking Happy Candy and making sure that, you know, as they say, it doesn't only sit on the shelf but also gets off the shelf.

13:03
Maxi Heidenblut
Right? Yeah. So that's a great question because initially it's cold calling. I personally walked into Delis in New York and just said, hey, I'm the founder of Happy Candy and had always a couple of samples with me and would leave them with them to try basically selling them. In addition to that, you know, kind of bottom up groundwork, I also partnered with a local small broker who basically checks. They do have some connections that they can help you with and get you into independent retailers, especially in New York City and Manhattan, Brooklyn, but they also check on the shelves. So they go and see, are you on the shelf? Can you get a secondary placement in the checkout area? With our product, which is an impulse buy, it's Candy. So we want to be close to the checkout area as well.

13:47
Maxi Heidenblut
So they help me, again, be more efficient with the time that I have and just being growing faster and checking on those stores and helping with reorders and that's what we're most focused on. So all these stores that we're in now is the time to see what is the velocity reorders. We're supporting with a lot of demos so we try to do that as much as possible. Again, getting the product into people's hands so they can try it and supporting in store sales and activations. And those retailers we work with really love to see that in really great locations like Pop Up Grocer in New York City. We're in Gourmet Garage, which we've supported a lot with demos and that's going really well. We're in Westside Market and these are all in New York.

14:31
Maxi Heidenblut
The Goodsmart has been a great partner and these have been incredible partners so far.

14:36
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, that's awesome. And now that you're, you know, you went to Fancy Foods and you're having some more conversations with larger buyers, how are you strategizing and approaching, you know, a potential further expansion outside of this regional area?

14:51
Maxi Heidenblut
Yeah, so we initiated those national retailer conversations and it's going really well. And now, you know, is the time of follow ups and working through proposals and explore, exploring what could a trial run look like. So we have multiple conversations that came from the Fancy food show, but then also just outreach in general. I've been really very proactive in trying to get in touch through either different platforms, networks or direct cold calling with several retailers. And we're continuing to have all these conversations. So by the time we all see each other again in this industry at Expo West, I hope that at least one of them is. I can already share more about one of them.

15:34
Grace Kennedy
Yes. Yeah. And this episode will come out after Expo west. But I'm also. How are you gearing up for this, you know, the hugest trade show ever?

15:43
Maxi Heidenblut
Yes. Yeah. So that's a really big one. After we exhibited for the first time at the Fancy food show in Las Vegas, now we kind of got our feet wet. We know kind of how those shows work. Expo west is obviously next level, but we're again going to be in the startup CPG area. So we've feel like we're in a good area. It's in the hot products section on level three. So we think we're going to see again a lot of buyers and just industry experts that are interested innovations in the food space.

16:12
Maxi Heidenblut
So we are just trying to get everything ready, you know, flyers, information, cards, stickers, our booth and hoping that we can repurpose a lot of these things for other shows that we're going to be at this year and then proactively reaching out to those buyers we know and letting them know, hey, we're at booth number 7812. This is going to be coming out after Expo, but we're emailing them and making sure that they are aware we're there and they stop by our booth. So that's what we're doing. And then obviously all these great events that startup CPG is organizing. So signing up for those. There are a lot of buyer meetings you can apply for. Who? Startup cpg. And we did all of that.

16:49
Grace Kennedy
Amazing. Well, I can't wait to see how you guys do with the show. I'm curious, is there a specific sort of retail that you see Happy Candy living in? Like is or is it kind of anywhere? Is it a Costco? Is it a Whole Foods? Is it. What are you sort of seeing as Happy Candy's like sort of prime location trajectory?

17:09
Maxi Heidenblut
Yeah. So our target audience and where we get the most demand from is millennial moms, basically, who are shopping for their kids. We see a lot of moms reaching out and buying our candy for their kids because no dyes and no funny aftertaste and less sugar. So it's more in the natural channel. I would say. Whole Foods would obviously be a great banner to be in because that's exactly where our target audience is. But it's also for millennials and gen zers that want to reduce their sugar consumption, but they don't want to have any fake sugars. And there's actually a recent, very interesting study from the International Food Information Council, the IFIC, and they had a food and health survey from 2024 before.

17:51
Maxi Heidenblut
And what they found is that especially younger Americans, millennials and Gen Zs prefer moderate amounts of sugar over those fake sugars, those sugar substitutes. And the reason is that it just tastes better, but they still want to consume it in moderation, obviously. And over a third of Americans actually completely avoid any alternative sweeteners. And those could be natural like stevia and monk fruit, but basically trying to avoid their intake of fake sugar. So we think actually with our product, we're pretty on trend of where the market is going and what the future of candy is going to look like, in our opinion.

18:27
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, I definitely agree. And also personally, as I said, you know, I don't really like those fake sweeteners either because they give me a stomachache. So I appreciate that there are more brands like yourself. I also interviewed Bare Maple, where their beverage is completely sweetened with maple water, which I loved. But yeah, there's so much cool innovation happening in this space and I'm thrilled to see a gummy candy that, like, isn't creepy ingredients. But another question I wanted to ask, as you know, you have a background in finance and I'm curious what your approach has been to financing Happy Candy. And especially as you are gearing up to potentially expand further, how have you approached making sure everything has enough money to keep going?

19:08
Maxi Heidenblut
Yeah, so that's a really good question because I'm bootstrapping this brand, meaning this is basically my savings that I'm putting into the business. So all my friends bought apartments or, you know, bought, invested in other things. I am investing in my company and at some point as we're expanding, I will need to either take on a loan or find outside investors. I think we are too early for VC for sure. But even with business angels, I'm hesitant because in the beginning you just give up a lot of your equity. Obviously you can accelerate growing with more Capital, but I think it's too early for us. By the time we open up one or two of these national retailers, I'll definitely need to look for outside capital. But at this point it's all bootstrapped.

19:54
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, absolutely. It's such a hard balance between bootstrapping and wanting to expand and going further. You also mentioned at the beginning talking a little bit about like the DTC and using the samples and sending those out to influencers and other people. I'm curious what your approach has been since that launch to like working with influencers around. Happy Candy.

20:16
Maxi Heidenblut
Yeah, so it's interesting because we found there are two types of influencers. Either influencers that are charging for posting about your brand, which we cannot do because it's just not in our budget at this point. And the other way is they are fine with just getting a barrier deal. Basically you sent them product and then they will present it to their followers, which we've had a good amount of influencers that were willing to do that, but the effects have been limited so far. We gained additional followers but in terms of that converting into significant sales, we haven't seen that yet. But I will also say I think it's a dedicated program that just needs a lot of time and dedication which I'm a one woman show as I mentioned. So I'm very much focused on retail right now.

21:01
Maxi Heidenblut
But I do think there is a big opportunity especially and this is not for us. We do have, we are on TikTok but I've heard from other fellow startup CPG brands that TikTok is a really great way to work, partner with influencers and grow your brand and generate sales from that.

21:17
Grace Kennedy
Are you guys on the TikTok shop?

21:20
Maxi Heidenblut
Yeah. So we submitted an application basically. So we will be soon on TikTok shop. We're not there yet. We don't have a ton of followers there yet either. So we're just starting to build our presence there and then hopefully we'll also be able to partner with influencers and create a larger following and convert some of those activities into sales.

21:41
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, totally. I've definitely heard from people that have had their TikTok shop for a minute now that it's like been like a great point of sale for them. I'm curious. This is maybe like my own idiosyncrasies but I would have such a hard time and I know this is what like every founder has to do is like get on social media and video myself like selling my product or anything. And so I'm curious I know you were saying you're starting to ramp up more your social media, but how do you kind of get over that hump of, like, putting yourself on social media and like, being out there, like, please buy my product?

22:12
Maxi Heidenblut
Yeah, this is such a great question because I'm really struggling with it. So I'm not a native to social media. I'm a millennial, so I'm a little bit on the older end and I don't speak TikTok. It's just I am on TikTok for the business and it has a high entertainment value and I think it's a great platform. It's just not. I didn't grow up with it, if that makes sense. So it is harder for me to generate content that I feel that comfortable with or like putting it out there. But it is something that I know I have to do more of, especially as the founder, to really convey my message and connect with the community. So I know it's really important.

22:50
Maxi Heidenblut
So, yeah, I'm trying to by also outsourcing that to some extent, like some of the social media content creation, working with a great partner. But I have to do more of that myself and I'm still struggling with that, but getting there, I'm learning.

23:03
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. If you're not sort of a TikTok native, as you said, it can be really challenging. And I'm with you. And then I'm a millennial myself, so I don't speak TikTok either, but I do find it entertaining, so that's fine. So you mentioned that you're, you know, applying to be on TikTok shop. I also saw that you're launching onto Amazon. So what is your approach with the sort of like introducing a few more DTC channels? I know it's not your priority, but how are you kind of navigating that?

23:28
Maxi Heidenblut
Yeah. So Amazon, we actually launched in January and that's going fairly well. So we have a return on ad spend of above 1.3. So that's like very good. You always. Which means I spend a dollar, I get 1:30 back, essentially. And we're just starting out. The most important thing for us was in the beginning to get organic reviews so that, you know, you create that trust and validation of your brand. And now we can grow from there and do more ad spend on Amazon. That's actually been quite successful for us where with that roas, if we can continue to grow with that kind of ratio, that would be fantastic. So that's been really good and going well. And then another DTC channel is obviously our Shopify shop, where we try to generate traffic from Instagram to our shop.

24:13
Maxi Heidenblut
And then hopefully soon, with TikTok shop adding another channel that will help us on the online front. Apart from Amazon, we're not doing any ad spend for Instagram. We have to see how it will go with TikTok. But it's just we had a trial run and it was so expensive and we didn't have the return on investment that were hoping for. So we did it for one month, burned a lot of cash, and then decided to give that a pause. So we're not doing any ad spend right now. We're trying to do as much as we can organically, which means it's a slow growth rate online. But yeah, again, it's an impulse buy. So I'm hoping that with our presence in retail, that's going to help us on the sales front.

24:52
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. How? I'm curious. I hear this from so many founders that, you know, reviews online are so important and I'm curious if you do anything to incentivize organic reviews or if you have any approach to trying to get customers to actually go and leave a review. Because I, I do know they can be so helpful to your visibility.

25:10
Maxi Heidenblut
Yeah. So on Amazon, you're actually not allowed to ask your customers to leave a review. So that is, that comes. That's all handled by Amazon and you get those automatically. In the beginning, I was just asking friends and friends of friends, please order and leave a review if you like it. And so that was helping to get the initial reviews and now it's growing organically with our little effort we put on Amazon. And then for Shopify, we have an app installed called Judge Me, and that automatically, after you order, sent you an invitation to leave a review. So that's been a really good tool for us as well.

25:46
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, that's awesome. I will definitely go leave my review after this podcast. I'm always forgetting to do that and I hear that from founders so often. It's like, if you have 30 seconds to spare, go leave a review the brands you love because it can go so far. So I'm going to. I'm making a mental note to do that today, but another sort of bigger question is I'm thinking about, you know, you're a fresh founder and I'm curious if there's anything that you've learned over these last six months to a year of developing and launching Happy Candy. I mean, I'm sure there's many things, but there's one piece of advice you wish someone had told you when you were on like day one of Happy Candy. Anything come to mind?

26:28
Maxi Heidenblut
Yeah, I think it would have been great to know earlier on to surround yourself with experts from the industry and having that network that I have now where I can just ask fellow founders or experts and get really valuable advice, because I've had a lot of learnings, but they were expensive, if that makes sense. So I think early on, just putting yourself out there, networking, people are incredibly supportive in this industry and reaching out and asking for advice and just not being afraid to share. Oh, I don't know how to go about this or I really don't know anything about this at all. Can you please help me? Most of the people will actually give you really good advice and the more people you ask and the more you will learn.

27:09
Maxi Heidenblut
So I think that's one thing, and maybe to add one more thing that I learned over the last year at least, is that the CPG industry is just a very. It's an expensive place to navigate, if that makes sense. The second thing I would add is that in order to be successful in retail, you need a lot of funding or budget because as you scale, you need to support it with promotions, with demos. And that is something I underestimated in the beginning, that you just need a lot of capital to successfully grow and establish your brand and get it out there. So that is just something to be aware of and really think thoroughly through your finances. If you're bootstrapping, what's your capital, how far will that get you?

27:56
Maxi Heidenblut
And that's why I think growing account by account is really important instead of growing everywhere and investing into everything, because that's just going to kill you in terms of the expenses that you're facing. So I think that was another key learning I had over the last year. And I wish I would have known that earlier because again, I had a lot of expensive learnings.

28:15
Grace Kennedy
Yes. Yeah, yeah. It's definitely not always a forgiving industry in the sense of once the money's gone and, you know, there's no getting it back. But I think those are both really great pieces of advice. And yeah, I'm always hearing founders say how important their network of founders is to them. And that is the whole point of startup cpt. And, you know, we really value all the founders that are members of our community. Back to Happy Candy. I'm curious where you see Happy Candy going this year and beyond. What does the future look like for Happy Candy in Your. In your eyes. Yeah.

28:49
Maxi Heidenblut
So we're very focused on getting into those national retailers, starting regional with one banner, maybe two, and then growing from there, but really making those initial listings a huge success with demos, with promotions, with a lot of dedication to those accounts, and then growing from there. So our focus is definitely the retail side and creating that footprint and being at the point of sale with our product. And that's basically what we're doubling down on and very focused on. That does come with a lot of trade shows that we're going to be attending and exhibiting at. So we have Expo west, then Snacks and Sweets Expo in May. We have the Fancy Food show this summer.

29:29
Maxi Heidenblut
So there's a lot of shows coming up that we're gonna try to get most out of in order to achieve our goal to really, you know, get that national distribution by the end of the year.

29:40
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. So exciting. And so many great trade shows the summer. Fancy Foods is actually one of my favorite trade shows. It's always really fun, so that'll be really sweet. And it's all, you know, it's in your backyard too, so that'll be really nice. My second. Well, I have two final questions. One is, what's your favorite happy candy flavor?

29:58
Maxi Heidenblut
Oh, that's such a tough question. I love all my children equally. But so we have two SKUs. One is Italian Summer, which is cherry and lemon, because who doesn't love summer in Italy, especially since the White Lotus. And the other one is Big Apple, because we're from New York City, which is red apple and green apple. I will say the cherry is just something that's a classic. And I really love cherry. But they're all good, so you can't go wrong with either.

30:22
Grace Kennedy
You can't go wrong. It's so true. Where can people learn more about happy Candy and support Happy Candy?

30:28
Maxi Heidenblut
Yeah, please follow us on Instagram. So, because as I mentioned in the beginning, I'm German, the Happy Candy logo has actually a German umlaut in it, which is just a fun play. It's of German descent, if you will. So it's spelled H A, E, P, P Y. But you'll find us on Instagram. Follow us on TikTok. That's a new thing we're building. And then you can find us on happycandy.com.

30:51
Grace Kennedy
Amazing. Well, everybody should go check out Happy Candy. Order some products or go. If you're in New York or any of the other places they have locations, go buy them in their retail locations. But it was so much fun to chat with you, Maxi and learn more about Happy Candy. And I can't wait to see where you guys go next.

31:08
Maxi Heidenblut
Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

31:13
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'm 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 partnershipsart. 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.