Nick Saltarelli is the Co-founder of Mid-Day Squares, a healthy, functional chocolate bar. Nick, his wife Lezlie, and her brother Jake started the company in 2018 from their kitchen in Montreal, and have since built their own factory with $70 million in capacity, and grown the company to a $26 million revenue run rate.
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Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/building-a-70-million-chocolate-factory
In this episode, we discuss:
The history of the $200 billion chocolate market
Competing against 100+ year-old monopolies
Finding a huge opportunity in healthier chocolate
The dirty secrets of contract manufacturing
Why no one knows how to make a Snickers bar, and Coca-Cola doesn't have a patent
How to build a moat in CPG
Why Mid-Day Squares had to build their own factory
Making chocolate like Tesla makes cars
Copying Facebook’s launch strategy
Measuring product market fit in CPG
Almost running out of money during COVID
Why every founding team should go to therapy
Surviving an 85% drop in revenue
How to raise a bridge round
Building an enduring brand
Why marketers should study the music industry
Timestamps
[00:00:00] Intro
[00:03:07] The insane politics of chocolate
[00:04:53] The history of chocolate
[00:07:11] The enormous market for chocolate
[00:10:24] The nutrition of chocolate
[00:15:00] The Mid-Day Squares origin story
[00:20:05] Creating the first product
[00:25:53] Why Coca-Cola never filed a patent on their formula
[00:29:08] Why they built their own manufacturing plant
[00:31:35] A crazy and creative fundraising strategy
[00:39:26] Taking over an island and finding PMF
[00:46:32] Raising $2m to prove 2 things
[00:47:15] Automating production and navigating manufacturing chaos
[00:51:11] Why he had to "plead with the government on public TV”
[00:53:51] On "eating shit sandwiches”
[00:57:30] The COVID mistake that dropped revenue by 85%
[01:03:02] Advice for raising a bridge round
[01:04:55] How to build fans not customers
[01:07:12] How to build in public
[01:12:23] Rapid fire questions
Where to find Nick
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nickywonka
Where to find Turner
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
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Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/building-a-70-million-chocolate-factory
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