Hitting The Mark

Michael Browning Jr. is the Founder and CEO of Unleashed Brands, the parent company of youth enrichment franchises that serve millions of families annually across 1,400 locations, including Urban Air Adventure Park, The Little Gym, Snapology, Premier Martial Arts, Class 101, XP League, and Water Wings. 

Michael and I delve into the business of building and expanding magnetic franchise brands: How to make a brand stick, how to attrac...

Katerina Schneider, founder and CEO of Ritual, has redefined the supplement industry through transparent science and sourcing.

In this episode, we revisit her launch of Ritual a decade ago—while she was pregnant—driven by her inability to find a supplement brand she could trust. We explore how her company challenged industry norms, treats customers as “Chief Health Officers,” leverages branding to fuel growth, and why a well-crafted...

Jake Danehy runs the apparel brand Fair Harbor, which has repurposed nearly 40 million plastic bottles into best-selling apparel. He started the company in college with his sister and scaled it into a multi-million-dollar values-led brand.

We talk about his childhood beach days in Fair Harbor, which inspired the brand’s name, how you can launch with as good as no funding, that you never own your brand - you only own your company, an...

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...

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 c...

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 proj...

Ben Christensen founded Cambium, a company that is building better supply chains, starting with wood, to make it possible to source every material in a regenerative way. This approach creates local jobs and is done just as efficiently, if not more efficiently, than it is today. And Ben and his team put storytelling at the core of their business, so not-surprisingly, their brand design and messaging stand out in an industry that is ...

Before starting chocolate brand Spring & Mulberry, Kathryn Shah was a brand strategy consultant who served as the Vice President of Global Marketing at Pantone and the Brand Manager for Veuve Clicquot Champagne, two brands 99% of us love and look up to.

It was a trip to India and a cancer diagnosis that led to her launching her startup Spring & Mulberry, a line of date-sweetened chocolate bars. After having Jeni Britton of Floura on...

Many of you know Jeni Britton from episode 28, where we did a deep dive into Jeni's Ice Creams, which she started at age 22 and now sells in 80 scoop shops and 12,500 retailers with an annual revenue north of 125 million. 

Today, we dive into a new chapter of Jeni's entrepreneurial journey with Floura. Floura is a next-generation fiber company that currently offers fiber bars, which she calls Fruit Crush Bars, in multiple flavors.

As...

This is the first time I get to say ‘welcome back’ on Hitting The Mark as I had Till Janczukowicz, the founder of Berlin-based IDAGIO, which is often described as 'the Spotify for classical music,' on episode 21.

But this is not a Let’s catch up with Till episode to check in on IDAGIO. Instead, I recently saw that he is preparing for an exciting brand launch that features none other than John Malkovich to kick things off.

The idea? S...

Ilay Karateke is on a mission to bring Labneh to kitchens around the United States, or maybe this is more of a sprint than a mission because her brand, BEZI, is moving fast.

Product development started in the kitchen a year ago. Today, they're in stores across New York City with e-commerce starting in December, and I can almost assure you that national distribution will follow shortly.

This is one of the very few super early-stage st...

Together with his brother, Ben Checketts co-founded Rhone, an athleisure wear brand inspired by the quality of Lululemon and the urge to craft a stand-out label for men. 

The brand is driven by the pursuit of mental fitness and Ben’s philosophy on branding is both refreshing and insightful. 

We talk about naming, focus groups, how brands are shaped yet set free – a lot like children are being raised – and why Rhone's Co-Founders boug...

Matt McLean ventured into the organic juice business 25 years ago with one goal: to fuel families with uncompromised nutrition. Today, Uncle Matt’s Organic produces the #1 bestselling organic orange juice nationwide. Matt is hustling the same way he did 25 years ago with new product launches and market expansions happening as we speak.

We talk about how his initial packaging design was hitting the mark for his ideal customer but lef...

Aleksandra Medina and Katrin Kaurov co-founded Frich (which stands for 'F***ing rich'), a financial literacy app for Gen Z that breaks the money taboo and makes it a social topic. 

Frich busts into the world of corporate finance backed by a brand that could not be any more differentiated and authentic. With their fists in the air, Aleksandra and Katrin lead with transparency in an opaque space and share the truth about how one compa...

Episode 109 brings us Rockwell Shah, the CEO, and N.B. Patil, the Co-Founder & CTO of Ozlo, an innovation startup in the sleep technology space.

All three of Ozlo’s Co-Founders are former Bose veterans and they acquired and licensed assets from Bose to resurrect the discontinued but beloved Sleepbuds.

This episode is a fascinating conversation about building a new brand on existing IP, the fragile tension between what customers say t...

Joan Nguyen is the Co-Founder and CEO of bumo, a brand that provides outstanding on-demand childcare for families and employers.

Bumo considers itself in the business of 'parent care' and today you can learn all about the TLC she and her Co-Founder put into crafting the bumo brand very hands-on, strategic, and filled with raw authenticity.

Trust is bumo’s brand DNA, but with an audience of new parents, you show trustworthiness very d...

Bennett Maxwell is the Founder and Chairman of Dirty Dough, one of the fastest-growing restaurant concepts in the US with 70 locations and another couple hundred in development.

In this episode, we get to hear how Bennett’s authentic reaction to a lawsuit that could have taken the business out instead created brand buzz, helped build his tribe, and added to the company's growth. 

We dive into the idea of instilling your personal miss...

Alex Ostroy successfully combined his passion for cycling and art into a beloved brand that creates eclectic clothing for cyclists who crave self-expression in an industry known for the opposite.

Coming from a graphic design and Creative Direction background, Alex’s story and advice will resonate with a lot of you who struggle with blending art and business, who doubt yourself when going with your gut instincts rather than catering ...