Yousuf Ahmed made his way from the music industry via Goldman Sachs to upcycling leftover oats (a byproduct of making oat milk) into what he describes as plant-based and protein-packed upcycled crunch puffs that taste like summer camp and save the world.

When I prepared for the show, I saw that his company, B-Sides, had just announced that their brand design had fallen a bit flat with consumers and that they were about to rethink it all. So here I was about to jump on a call to talk branding with Yousuf, and then that bombshell.

Needless to say, this episode has more of a brand workshop vibe to it, and I personally really enjoyed thinking through the brand on the fly and hearing Yousuf’s very smart and insightful takes on consumers, packaging, and branding.

5 years ago, Jen Pelka was the founder and CEO of The Riddler, a beloved champagne bar located in San Francisco and NYC, where she offered hundreds of champagnes to a clientele of mainly badass women, quite similar to the team who served them. Then the pandemic hit, and fast-forward to today, where Jen is the Co-founder and CEO of Une Femme, the fastest-growing sparkling wine brand in the US.

Jen and I talk about how today's wine consumer has changed, going through a big pivot, the challenges of being a degree separated from the end consumer, how her brand is about embodying the idea of fun, and the power of building a brand from within an organization.

Brian Sheng is the CEO and Co-Founder of Aquaria, a tech startup that literally makes water out of thin air. The company supplies premium drinking water for homes, businesses, and outdoor spaces and backup water generators that are completely independent of plumbing infrastructure. The brand was named one of TIME magazine’s best inventions of 2024 and has secured 102M in funding for large-scale Aquaria Air Water Infrastructure projects.

How to tell this story, the many A-HA moments across his journey and why a founder-led brand voice is crucial are all topics Brian and I dive into in this episode.