angela vranich is the co-founder and chief product officer of little spoon, the brand that started with fresh baby food and now feeds kids from infant formula to big kid snacks. she joins sean to trace how little spoon went from hand-making baby food in a tamale factory outside la to going direct-to-consumer after a whole foods launch stalled, selling over a million meals in year one. she gets into branding for the parent instead of the kid, operation gravity, where every employee talks to a customer once a year, and the record target launch that put little spoon in stores nationwide. plus why winning a parent's trust on first bites earns you every category after, and how aging up with customers kept direct-to-consumer working as ad costs climbed.
In this episode of Read Receipt, Sean sits down with Angela Vranich, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Little Spoon, the brand that launched the first fresh baby food in 2017 and now feeds kids from infant formula through big kid snacks.
Angela traces the build from two years of hacking together custom packaging and making baby food by hand in a tamale factory outside LA, to a Whole Foods launch that stalled and a pivot to direct-to-consumer that sold over a million meals in year one. She gets into branding for the parent instead of the kid, Operation Gravity, where every employee spends 45 minutes with a customer once a year, and the Target launch that became the largest food and beverage launch in the retailer's history.
She also digs into why earning a parent's trust on first bites gives you the right to win every category after, launching infant formula to age down with customers, running an operation built on almost 20 co-packers, and how aging up with customers made direct-to-consumer work as ad costs kept rising.
Angela Vranich: Last year, we ended the year over like 150 million in revenue direct to consumer alone and finally launched into Target. It was a nationwide launch, their largest food and beverage retail launch in the history of the company.
Sean: I am super excited to have you back for another episode of Read Receipt. It's a deep dive into the how and why of the brands we love and the creatives behind them. From blueprints to launch day, customers as community, and the detours in between. Big lessons and easy listening. Read Receipt is hosted by Antidote, the email and SMS marketing agency by people who hate boring email. And when did you start working on the idea of of a brand and Little Spoon?
Angela Vranich: So I started working on Little Spoon when I was 24 years old, like so around 2014. I think, you know, a fresh baby food company would really crush it. And so I started working on a fresh baby food product. Everyone here cares deeply about our mission to make parents' lives easier and kids healthier and wants to be the best that we can possibly be.
Sean: where are you based out of?
Angela Vranich: New York.
Sean: W- Are you from New York?
Angela Vranich: No, I'm originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. and I've been in New York for, since 2018. July 2018 I moved here. So, yeah, we have our-- I'm at our office now. We have our office in Soho. I live in Tribeca. my husband and I also spend some time in Miami, so we go back and forth, and when it's cold here, we like to escape to, to Florida.
Sean: You've had the brand now for 10 years, or?
Angela Vranich: Yeah, we launched in 2017.
Sean: Okay. Wow. And, and what was your background before launching the brand?
Angela Vranich: before launching the brand, I was basically a college student and I started a marketing company for natural and organic food and beverage brands. it was kind of like a fun project that turned into a real business my junior and senior year of college. So I ended up having a bunch of independent contractors working for me and, and clients in the natural food space, and had people going into stores doing product merchandising and in-store demos, and that was kind of like my first foray into the natural food space.
Sean: And that was the marketing company that you had at the time?
Angela Vranich: I was, you know, kind of always in and around the food space because of my prior business, and really just wanted to start a brand of my own and, saw the whole shift happening toward fresh in the natural product space. So like juice cleansing was super popular. There were, you know, s- a d- dozen juice brands, new juice brands popping up. There were dips, salad dressings, and like 10 fresh pet foods, and just saw the shift toward fresh and saw the, you know, glaring need for, a fresh option in baby food and thought there's an opportunity here in the baby food market.
Sean: How, how did you start working on it? Did you just start, like, developing product? Were you still doing the marketing work at the time?
Angela Vranich: So I didn't have the marketing company anymore. I, I'd shut it down when I graduated from college because I was really, like... it was a lot of fun and I was making good money, but it wasn't what I wanted to be doing. Like, I didn't wanna be managing a bunch of independent contractors and I learned a lot, but it just wasn't what I wanted to be doing in the future, and I thought I wanted to go into TV. So for a while I worked in reality television production doing like food-related stuff, so Food Network, Travel Channel, working for a production company in Philadelphia. And then I quickly realized I also didn't wanna do that and still kind of like had the itch to start something of my own. I was still going to like all these food trade shows and, you know, kind of like had this idea for fresh baby food. But I mean, to really get it off the ground, was a feat. It probably took about two years from the time I started working on it to get to a finished product. Just because no one had ever done fresh baby food, so I couldn't find anyone who was willing to manufacture it for us. We had to, hack together manufacturing. I had to, actually have custom packaging made because we were using a, an emerging food technology back then called high pressure processing, which is an alternative to thermal pasteurization. It uses cold water pressure to safely extend the shelf life of the refrigerated food. And there was no packaging that existed back then that would've worked for baby food, because it was such a new technology. So I, I learned a lot about plastics. I found a thermoformer in Boston. I found, an injection molder who made our lid, developed all this custom... And, and people who were willing to work with like super small minimums too, because we were only making like a few thousand units. Um, developed custom packaging, and then had to figure out manufacturing. Could not find anyone who wanted to make, fresh baby food because obviously it's a high liability product. You're feeding a very sensitive population. And ended up finding a guy in outside of LA who had a tamale factory, and he had one piece of equipment that we really needed, and that was a gigantic steamer because we had to steam all of the vegetables that we were buying before we were pureeing them. And he was like, "I have extra space. You can, you know, use my labor. I'll upcharge you on the labor." So we ended up like buying some of our own equipment to puree, dropped a few pieces of equipment in that space. Was using his steamer, and we started making fresh baby food by hand, out of that tamale factory. But it was like-
Sean: This sounds like chaos.
Angela Vranich: Yeah. It was c- it was a bit of chaos. Like, I can still smell the corn masa, honestly, wafting through the air. But I spent hours, like hours upon hours upon hours in that windowless tamale factory. And at the time I was living in San Francisco, the factory was in LA, so I was just in LA like all the time, living out of hotels, living out of like really crappy hotels, and just like at a tamale factory making baby food by hand.
Sean: Sounds incredible. Yeah. An incredible career pivot.
Angela Vranich: Yeah. It was honestly some of the most fun days. Like looking back, I'm like, "Oh, I, I wish I could go back to the tamale factory sometimes."
Sean: Wow, that's crazy. Yeah. Was it just fun, like, problem-solving and making stuff, and like the progress?
Angela Vranich: Yeah. It was just fun problem-solving. We were just like hacking it together and like having fun, having fun doing it and like meeting people, and I was just young and it was... I didn't know what I didn't know, you know? I was so naive. Yeah. So I was just in a tamale factory making baby food, you know?
Sean: Did you, did you raise money to work on it? It sounds like it was hard to do and expensive making like molds for packaging?
Angela Vranich: Yeah, for sure. So, the first-- until we got to, like, our MVP, like our very first product, it was self-funded. So spent money on molds, but again, like we're r- we really found these smaller partners who were really wor- willing to work with us. it wasn't, like, super-duper expensive in the very beginning for, like, the custom packaging. we bought, like, some used equipment, and that was all self-funded to get the product off the ground. And then we ended up raising money. we got a commitment from a couple regions of Whole Foods where we ultimately actually ended up not launching. But when we got those retail commitments, we were able to raise, kind of like a f- an angel round, which was around, like, a million dollars we raised.
Sean: Okay. And you guys, you didn't end up launching in Whole Foods at all?
Angela Vranich: We did not. the original idea was to launch in retail, launch in Whole Foods, and we basically, you know, we got approved in a couple regions, Rocky Mountain and SoPac at the time, 'cause they were doing their buying at the regional level. And, we had l- even gotten to the point where they were like, "Okay, there's no destination for fresh baby food, but if you wanna buy coolers, you could put coolers in line in the aisle." And we literally we- I went to China with my husband, who was our CEO and my co-founder, went to China, went on a sourcing trip. We bought coolers that today are still at a, storage facility in Torrance, California. Hopefully one day soon we'll be able to use the coolers. But, we were all ready to go. We'd produced product. We had everything ready to go. And, Ben had this kind of chance run-in at Expo West, which is this big natural products trade show, with their global head of food safety, and he mentioned to him, "Oh, we're gonna be launching in a couple of your regions." And he was like, "I don't know anything about that. You're launching fresh baby food? Like, we've never sold fresh baby food. This is a high liability product. Like, we're gonna need to pump the brakes, and you're gonna need to, like, fill out all this paperwork and answer all these questions, and, like, you're not gonna be able to go about your launch as planned." And we were like, "Ugh, okay." So we were able to fill out the paperwork and answer the questions, but then that guy ended up leaving, then our buyer ended up leaving, and then we were just kind of stuck in this limbo, and we were not able to, like, really-- we had no point of contact, and were really struggling to get through, and no one really cared about us and our fresh baby food and our coolers. We had a finished product and really, you know, we're like, "How else could we launch this?" And direct-to-consumer was kind of an obvious answer for us because, you know, at the time, kind of like the food delivery was up and coming. You-- there were like the Blue Aprons and the HelloFreshs of the world. But really, like, as we were conceptualizing the brand, we were, you know, realizing like we're, we're really creating a brand for this modern millennial parent, a parent who is so different than past generations. And I think that came across, like, in the branding. Like, our branding was really geared, you know, toward p- the parent and not the kid. If you looked at the baby food aisle at that time, it was like cheesy, fanciful, like storybook names, cartoon characters on the pouch. But the child isn't the one making the purchasing decision, it's the parent. And so when we conceptualized the brand, we really wanted to make something that felt like cool and fresh for this millennial parent. And similarly, like that millennial parent is doing all their research online. You know, they're not going into the store and like on a whim deciding what the, what brand of first food they're gonna feed their kid. And so we really just thought, "Okay, if they're doing their research online, we wanna be the first thing that comes up when they're searching baby food, what do I feed my kid?" And decided to really like launch direct-to-consumer and, create this whole, you know, brand and really speak to the modern parent online. And so that's, that's what we did. We, we eschewed retail com- completely and, and ended up launching with 10 flavors of fresh baby food on direct-to-consumer, and we sold over a million meals in our first year direct-to-consumer, which was so crazy. Which, I mean, we were, we were fulfilling out of the tamale factory too, so like orders, you know, were being packed by hand and shipped, and there was a lot of-
Sean: That's insane. Did you just- Yeah ... take over the whole factory?
Angela Vranich: Basically, yeah. Basically.
Sean: That is crazy. Yeah ... were you living, you were living in San Francisco and still just traveling back to the factory?
Angela Vranich: Yeah, yeah, living in San Francisco and just traveling back and forth to LA.
Sean: Wild. Did you guys do the branding yourself? Did you bring in other people to, to help you with it?
Angela Vranich: We-- Yeah, so we worked with a branding agency, at the time called Little Big Brands, who helped us concept kind of the original look and feel.
Sean: Wow. Did you already have the name or did they- Yeah ... did they come up with the name?
Angela Vranich: We did. Yeah, we had the name. The name was really just like a part of a brainstorm that I was doing, just like writing down a bunch of things, crossing them out, texting my husband, being like, "Do you like this? Do you like this?" And he honestly didn't-- His first reaction, I still have the text message. I still have the text message. I can't remember what year it was. But, He originally didn't like the name because at the time there was another kids brand that was selling kids snacks called Little Duck, and he was like, "It might be a little too similar to Little Duck." And I was like, "I don't think so. Little Spoon is on its own."
Sean: How did you guys launch online and hit, so much traction quickly?
Angela Vranich: We-- I mean, it was, it was largely... I mean, so we were running digital ads, which back then were super cheap, but largely it was-
Sean: Did they, did they feel cheap back then, though?
Angela Vranich: No, no, they didn't feel cheap, but in comparison to now, they-
Sean: I just was curious if back then you knew they were cheap- No ... or if you were still like, "These are expensive."
Angela Vranich: Yeah, no, and we also... Like, the targeting wasn't as good back then, so, you know.
Sean: Yeah.
Angela Vranich: But it was actually largely word of mouth. We really, like, had a, had kinda like a lot of grassroots efforts happening in San- both in San Francisco and in New York. We focused on New York as a market as well. Our very first hire was actually just, like, a boots-on-the-ground marketing girl in New York who was going to every event under the sun that we could sample at. So, like, every mom event, like, mommy and me fitness classes, like, anywhere we could pop up and get Little Spoon in people's hands is, like, what we were doing both in New York and San Francisco. And so, largely the early days in that first year, it was word of mouth.
Sean: That's awesome. Were you, like, doing partnerships with these groups, or would she just, like, go show up?
Angela Vranich: Yeah. Yeah, no, it was, it was partnerships. We would, we would make sure that they were cool with it ahead of time. But it was, like, you know, fitness classes. Like, we'd just have, like, a table after the class, and we'd be sampling the product, or if there was, like, a kids event, like that, those, those types of things we would, we would always be present at.
Sean: That is so crazy to launch online after planning retail and then to sell a million meals and have to figure out how to make them. Yeah. Were you expecting to hit scale like that? Like, were, were you prepped to be able to make that many meals?
Angela Vranich: I mean, luckily, we were able to scale out of that factory. We were just able to add-- It was just, like, manpower and more, you know, hours, just, like, adding shifts. so luckily, like, we were able to scale out of there, and we were able to, we were able to produce product out of there for a couple of years. And then when we finally got to a scale where we could go to a much larger co-packer who was, like, at that point, finally interested in taking our business on, because it was way more meaningful than, you know, when we were just getting started.
Sean: How, how long did you guys go before you launched, like, another category or, or another product?
Angela Vranich: So we launched our second category, which is our plates. They're ready-to-heat, meals for toddlers. They're refrigerated meals. We launched those in 2020. So we launched the, the baby food in 2017, and we went three years until we, we launched our next product.
Sean: Wow. During COVID. What, what type of revenue did you guys hit before launching the, the second product category?
Angela Vranich: Um, honestly, that's a great question. I don't even remember. I should know the answer to that question. It's all a blur.
Sean: I just was curious, like, what type of scale... At that point, you guys still were only direct to consumer, right?
Angela Vranich: Yeah, we were only direct to consumer, only selling the baby food. I mean, it was a few million dollars. It was, it was small. It was not, not significant.
Sean: Okay. did-- Was the, was the factory owner that you guys partnered with originally, was he like... What was it like for them having you guys scale that much? I think it was- Were they, were they happy with it?
Angela Vranich: Yeah. Oh, yeah. They were very happy with it. They were, they were very excited, and they were... he was great 'cause He was, like, down for anything. Like, we could- That's cool ... bring him anything, and he was like, "Sure." He was always like, "Okay." That was his thing. Belgian, so he'd just say, "Okay."
Sean: Wow.
Angela Vranich: And then we ended up actually launching our plates out of that factory too, because it was, again, like super small scale. So we dropped a piece of equipment in that factory. We were making things like, you know, we were making, like, macaroni and cheese with hidden veggie sauce. So we were, like, making the hidden veggie sauce by hand, plating the mac and cheese, sealing the plates, you know, doing like- chicken nuggets and ravioli and turkey taco plate, and so they had the, those, like, cooking capabilities as well, and so they were, you know, really, like, a wonderful partner to us in the early days because it was like a, it was like a pilot plant. We were able to kind of, like, pop up, um, anything-
Sean: So awesome.
Angela Vranich: ...that we wanted to do there. We still work with them today in, in- Really? ... in a smaller capacity, yeah. Yeah.
Sean: What do you guys do with them today?
Angela Vranich: So we still make a small portion of our meals there. We're also probably gonna be making, like, some, like, meal components there as well. they've grown like crazy too. The factory has since been sold. The original guy doesn't own it anymore, but we still keep in touch with him, and all the same people still work there, and it's really nice to just, like, be able to continue to work with them and continue the relationship. So it's, it's been a long, a long-term business partnership that we would've never expected.
Sean: What a- Yeah, what a crazy ride. Yeah. With, uh, yeah, just, like, totally unexpected, or it seems like it would be.
Angela Vranich: Uh-huh. I mean, definitely unexpected.
Sean: Yeah. How, how long did you guys go before launching in retail? You guys are in Target now- Yeah ... right?
Angela Vranich: We, we went up until last year, so 2025, we launched in Target. You know, we launched the company in 2017 and, and grew it entirely direct to consumer. we did-- Last year, we ended the year over, like, 150 million in revenue direct to consumer alone, and, finally launched into Target. It was a nationwide launch, their largest food and beverage retail launch in the history of the company. So we launched 23 SKUs across six categories with them nationwide. and it's been a really wonderful partnership and just, like, cool to see the performance of the product because we've spent so many years building a relationship online with our customers, and there are, you know, existing customers who are excited to see us in Target, or people who, you know, we've hit before with our digital ads and maybe didn't wanna sign up for a subscription and have Little Spoon shipped to their house but have always been curious to try. So now they're able to go into Target stores and, and buy our products, and we've been innovating alongside them. We've launched a lot of really cool new stuff. We'll end this year with over 40 SKUs at Target, so just continuing to grow that partnership, and it's been really rewarding and cool to see.
Sean: Wow. Uh, so the initial launch with Tar- Target, did you guys-- Were those all new products?
Angela Vranich: Um, a small portion of them were new. So we took some of our existing kinda like greatest hits products into Target, our smoothies, some of our baby snacks, baby cereal. Those, those were existing items that we took into Target. And then, we launched for the first time, some multi-serve frozen items. So we have some components on our plates line that we make custom, like a hidden veggie chicken nugget, and a chicken slider, and mini meatballs, that for years our customers have been like, "I love these. Can I just buy them in bulk?" And we've never put them in bulk because just shipping bags of frozen things can be quite challenging. and so finally, with the Target partnership, we were able to launch those in a multi-serve format, which has been amazing. And the mini meatballs are crushing it. We have three out of the five best-selling frozen kid, kid items in that aisle right now, and we're continuing to launch more frozen innovations with them this year. So- That's crazy ... that's also been like a fun category to play in.
Sean: How, how big is your team now? This seems like an operationally hard business.
Angela Vranich: Yes. I would say our operations is our competitive moat. We have really like, you know, scaled the operation operationally over the years and been very intentional about how we scale. We have-- we work with, I think, almost 20 co-packers. We don't own any of our manufacturing. We have six fulfillment centers, so it's, you know, quite a lot to manage. Our team today is 109 people. yeah, primarily remote. I'd say like 40% of our, our people are in New York. We have an office in New York, where I am right now.
Sean: Wow. crazy arc over time. Is it, is it wild to think back, like, on the tamale factory days with how different your-- you spend your time now versus then?
Angela Vranich: Yeah, definitely. It's, It is pretty crazy to think back, like, back to the tamale factory days when I-- it was just, you know, me and my husband making baby food by hand, to now have, you know, a team and all of these products that we manage. So we have over 160 SKUs today, across frozen, ambient, refrigerated. I'm our chief product officer, so I oversee all of our physical product development. I have a team of six food scientists underneath me-
Sean: Wow.
Angela Vranich: ...who are way smarter than I am and can like, you know, know way more than I do when it comes to developing products. And I still love, like, rolling up my sleeves and, like, going to these production facilities. I was just at a production run yesterday, w- for a product that we're launching next month that we've been working on for three years, so that'll be a really fun one to see come to life. But yeah, it's super fun. I feel very lucky.
Sean: Wow, that is so crazy. Um, I sound like an idiot probably saying that to you. You're like, "Yeah, I know."
Angela Vranich: Yeah, it is pretty crazy.
Sean: It's also like a normal day-to-day for you now, but I'm hearing about the start at the same time, so it's like a, a way crazier juxtaposition of, like, then versus right now.
Angela Vranich: Mm-hmm.
Sean: Yeah. What, what do you feel like are the key components to the success? I, I feel like hearing your story, it's like identifying the space and the bigger trend, and then being able to problem solve and, and shift ways to get to the vision and the category shift- Mm-hmm. Yeah ... and still thrive through all of the ducking and, and changing of paths.
Angela Vranich: I think it's a lot of things. I feel like we were kind of right place, right time with the product offering. So fresh baby food didn't exist. Millennials were just starting to become parents. They really wanted something that was better than what they grew up on. Like, you know, and the direct-to-consumer model really just made sense. Like you have the majority of households are dual income. People want convenience. They don't wanna feel guilty about what they're feeding their kids, but they're more educated than ever on what they're feeding their children and themselves. Like they know that food equals health. So parents were really looking for a better option, and they were really looking for a brand that spoke to them, and we were very early on in answering that call and gaining parents' trust. And we've always said like if we could get parents to trust us with their first bites of food, we would have a right to win in subsequent categories as their kids were aging up. And so I think it was a timing thing. I think we have also just been very intentional and thought- thoughtful in how we've kind of like grown the business and, and built out our, you know, the operations arm of the business because it is very operationally intense and just really like staying close to the product and our consumer. My husband and I are just as involved today as we were back in the day when it was just the two of us making baby food by hand in the tamale factory. And so I think like staying close to the product and customer and like really caring so deeply about who we're serving, the customer experience, all of the products that, we put out into the world, the ingredients that we're sourcing, like the whole end-to-end experience, and like making sure that's as good as it can be. and like every company says that, like, "We care about our customers, and w- we, we work really hard to make great products," but like we really do, and I think that is ingrained in our company culture as well. And, it's just, I think like all of those kind of ingredients together is what has contributed to our success in getting us, you know, to where we are today.
Sean: How do you, how do you and your husband stay close to the product? I mean, you're working on product, so that seems somewhat obvious, but, to the customers, like how do you spend your time so that you are staying close and heavily involved? Mm-hmm.
Angela Vranich: So, I mean, lots of things. We have a really wonderful initiative at Little Spoon that we do once a year called Operation Gravity, where every single person in the company has a Zoom with a customer for 45 minutes. So we like, we're not just, you know, doing consumer insights and looking at the top level numbers. We're actually putting faces to names and like understanding what the real pain points are and what people are loving, what they're not loving, and, you know, really making sure that everyone in the company is able to like talk to a customer and understand who we're serving, because it can be easy to sit in a meeting and like look at top level numbers. But, you know, our customer care team talks to customers all the time, but like our, the people on our, you know, web development team don't, like they don't necessarily know who we're serving. So like making sure that we're staying close to, to the customers in that way, trying all the products, going to production runs. We do a ton of insights, like talking to customers all the time. I think the beauty of the direct-to-consumer business model is that we have that one-to-one relationship with our customers, so we know their names, their kids' names, we know how old their kids are. We can like really target them in a unique way and speak to them in a unique way and get insights that really like fuel that whole product development pipeline, and that's how we've really like built our whole platform of 160 products.
Sean: Did you always know that you wanted to go into the infant formula space? Was that like your most recent and biggest launch of a new, new product?
Angela Vranich: Yes. Yeah, so infant formula is, our most recent and by far the, the biggest launch, in quite a while at Little Spoon. We have always had a desire to go into infant formula. Infant formula is very challen- a very challenging category because it's regulated more like a drug in the United States than it is food, so it's a very different category for us to play in. Um, but we, you know, we real- we spent eight years building trust with parents for baby, toddler, and big kid food, and had been thinking about formula for a while and really felt like, okay, the timing is right to enter this space and age down with our customers instead of aging up with them. we're very intentional in the way we brought that product to market. we do a lot of work on the ingredients that we use at Little Spoon, and so we chose New Zealand, for our dairy source, so we're using organic grass-fed dairy from New Zealand for that product. And it's been a really fun, interesting product to bring to market. I would've never imagined that we would be bringing, an infant formula to market even though we always had kind of this pipe dream.
Sean: why is it so hard, like, in terms of the regulation? Is it FDA regulated or-
Angela Vranich: Yeah, so it's FDA regulated. The manufacturing is highly regulated. There are only a, a handful of manufacturers in the United States that are able to make infant formula. and there's just like a lot of, a lot of red tape, rightfully so, because you're feeding a very, very sensitive population, and so it is a, a tough category to break into.
Sean: I also have a three-week-old baby. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Congratulations. Seems relevant to tell you that now.
Angela Vranich: Yes, very relevant. Yeah. Well, actually, I'm expecting my first baby. Ben and I are- Oh my God ... expecting a, a baby in December. That is awesome. And, which is like, yeah, it's crazy because, I've spent my whole life, you know, feeding other people's kids. Yeah. And now I'll have a kid of my own to feed.
Sean: Your kid will have unlimited food and snacks.
Angela Vranich: Yeah, totally. Like I, I don't know much, but I will know what to feed the kid at least. So- there's that.
Sean: Also, I was gonna ask you, like, it's... Is it easier for you getting into the mindset of parents not being a parent?
Angela Vranich: I personally think so because it has made me completely unbiased, you know? Like we-- I hear feedback all the time or I'll hear one-off feedback from our team and, you know, one person's experience doesn't necessarily reflect everyone else's. And so I do feel like it has enabled me to be, you know, pretty unbiased in the way we're kind of like looking at things and, and developing products. So yeah. But I mean, now that I'll have a kid of my own, I'll probably be digging in even more and I don't know. Maybe like, "We need to improve this, this, and this."
Sean: Yeah. Or you'll just have like preferences that you notice.
Angela Vranich: Yeah, for sure.
Sean: Or your kids will have preferences that you notice. Yep. Yeah. I don't know. Uh, we have a three-week-old, a three-year-old, and a six-year-old.
Angela Vranich: And how-- Are they good eaters?
Sean: Uh, yes, they are good eaters. They are good eaters, but that's because we- I don't know if this is gonna be popular to tell you or for anyone else. Um, we just treat them, uh, we treat them like adults, so they eat what we eat. And, uh, my wife is like definitely crazy about researching and looking into things and, um, but for the most part we... Yeah, they eat like we eat. Um, there's a really interesting parenting podcast that I feel like is also somewhat unpopular, but there's like a theory on parenting kids. Um, I forget what it, it's called exactly. It's basically like kids are adults. Mm-hmm. And you should treat them that way. Like in terms of like how you talk to them and how you present information to them. Um, I think it's interesting though. They talk about like the idea of rules and the, the, the, the guy that's on it has eight, I think eight kids, and he has no rules with his kids. Like at all. And, um, it sounds really difficult though. Yeah. Uh, it is interesting though because one thing that he points out is like you'll notice how much energy you waste fighting with your kids about rules that you just make up, and they know you make them up. Most of the time you're like trying to teach them important things, but you don't have to teach them by forcing them to do it. Like you can do it in more creative ways. It does sound l- difficult because it would take more energy or you have to put up with like them having a fit. I'll connect this back to what I, what we were talking about. Um, an example would be like m- our kids are good eaters. Sometimes they won't, um, be as interested in eating. Mm. Or like they're not as, they're not as hungry at the moment- Right ... so like they won't eat as much. And, uh, in the past we would, I d- we would honestly like try and force them to eat more to try and make them be like good eaters. But kids don't really have appetites like that. They have like waves of being really hungry and eating a ton, and then waves of being not that interested, almost like me or you- Mm-hmm would be. And, uh, so that podcast was talking like imagine you being forced to eat when you're not that hungry, like how uncomfortable it would be for you to force yourself to eat. It's like so off-putting. So that's the only thing that we ever struggle with is like remembering like, okay, it's fine if they don't eat as much at this one meal. Like I will notice that maybe the next day or morning they'll eat like three times the amount of food- Yeah ... that they ate before. So that's one thing that I try and be more aware of. Um, and the baby formula thing definitely came up recently because my sister had a baby and, uh, their baby was formula fed. My wife was like, "Wow," like, "it's so crazy how little- research is done on baby formula and like it is hard. It's so hard to find something that you would want- Yeah ... to feed your baby, but like the-- that people don't know more, like the actual mechanics of it is wild. Mm-hmm. So yeah, that's something that I became more aware of. I'm not as aware of it because, um, all of our kids fortunately have been breastfed. Mm-hmm. Like completely, um, outside of like small supplemental times. Yeah. Not that you wanted to hear that whole story, by the way.
Angela Vranich: No, no. It's... I mean, actually, like a lot of what you say is really interesting. I think like treating kids like adults, I've watched my sister-in-law raise her three kids, and she's completely raised them like adults in what she's fed them and how she's parented them, and like now they're teenagers, and I mean, they've turned out to be amazing children. But it's like been so interesting to even see them as little kids as she was, you know, treating them like adults and like just their behavior in contrast to like some other kids who I think were treated more kid-like. And I think on the eating thing, it's super interesting because growing up, like I was always like... My parents were like, "You gotta finish your meal." Like, "You can't leave the dinner table until you finish your plate." And I feel like that has stayed with me as an adult. Ugh. And so like-
Sean: So terrible ...
Angela Vranich: multiple times a week, I'm just like sitting in front of food like, "I gotta finish this," even though I'm not hungry.
Sean: Such a... Yeah, it's such a bad feeling.
Angela Vranich: I know, but it's like healthy eating habits. It is, it is really important.
Sean: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is hard though, because if you give your kids like more awareness or I, I've-- With, with us, I, I try and be like, "Just listen to your body." Like, if you're hungry, y- you need to eat. Or if you're like kind of having a fit probably food related. Th-that is the hard thing though about that podcast and treating your kids like adults. Like the examples, uh, or the two people on that podcast with the person talking about it disagree with him completely. Interesting. And they're like challenging him the whole time, and one of them is like a, a very famous investor and very successful, and he's like, "I'm super interested in this guy's theory because he's so willing to argue about it." And honestly, I have taken a lot of the ways that he raises his kids because the logic does line up after I argue with him that much. And, um, they'd be like, "What happens, like, if your kid wakes up and they wanna eat candy?" Yes. And he's like, "I treat them like an adult. Like, you could eat candy if you want to." Um, he's like, "One time, like my two-year-old woke up and wanted to eat lollipops." He's like, "So I literally dumped out the whole bag. I opened every lollipop, and then she licked 10 lollipops and learned what every adult knows, which is lollipops are disgusting and you feel terrible." Like, and then he's like, "We left the lollipop bowl out for like three days. No one touches them," or they, or they overeat and then they learn because they have like a meltdown and they feel terrible that like, yeah, that was... honestly, that was pretty gross. The hard thing is like most people are not really willing to go through the fit aspect of it. So like if your kid wanted to leave the house without a jacket on and it's cold outside, like you don't really wanna deal with your kid being freezing and probably giving you like a really hard time- No ... the whole day.
Angela Vranich: Yeah.
Sean: Um, so that part is what I have a hard time with is like the- the patience.
Angela Vranich: What about like bedtime? If they just wanna stay up, he just lets them.
Sean: Yeah, they talk about that too. This one I think is harder. I don't really agree with this because I feel like you need quiet time after your kids go to bed. Um, but basically everything comes back to like leading by example. So he's like, "If you want your kids to have a good bedtime, like you better have a, a good bedtime. You better have like a good wind down thing, otherwise they're not gonna like really respect or understand why you try and teach them the things you do." The one example that they bring up is brushing your teeth. He's like, "So how do you get your kids to brush their, their teeth?" Like you don't force them to do that. He's like, "No, no, you have to be more creative. Like we have to make like a game out of it to figure out like why would a kid be interested in learning why they brush their teeth?" And why they would want to brush their teeth. So that aspect of it is like, that's so hard. Yeah. In day-to-day life, not to just be like, like, "No, no, this is what I said." Yeah. Yeah. But the e- the energy aspect of it is after listening to that podcast, it is hard to ignore. Like when you get in arguments with your kids about what you want, like a preference that you have. Mm-hmm. And then you're like, "I don't want to explain why I have this preference," yet I also am now like aware of how much we're arguing about something I really don't care about. Like, I don't really care either way. Yeah. Like if you're not, if you're not hungry Why do I care?
Angela Vranich: Right.
Sean: Versus me like yelling at you about not eating. Yeah. Why would I do that? It... I don't know. It's interesting.
Angela Vranich: Interesting. Gotta give it a listen.
Sean: Yeah. I'll send it to you after this. Yeah, please. It's kind of a crazy one. The, the controversial-- The most controversial thing is screen time, which I definitely disagree-
Angela Vranich: Mm-hmm.
Sean: with his views on that, but it is hard 'cause you're, uh, his take is like we are addicted to phones and you are in front of your kids. So it is like a massive th- like misalignment where your kids are glaringly aware of how addicted to your phone you are, and yet all of your rules will be the opposite of how you act, which is definitely like, that one's tough.
Angela Vranich: Yeah. That is tough.
Sean: Yeah. How do you think you're gonna be as a parent?
Angela Vranich: I think I'll be pretty chill, honestly. I just, I don't have the energy to, you know, argue and I- Yeah ... I, we will probab- we will have rules. I don't think we'll be as extreme as the podcast- Yes ... guy, but I mean, we'll be, we'll be chill. And we like to travel, and the kid will just be an ex- the kid will be an extension of us, I think.
Sean: Yeah. Do you know what you're having, or...? Oh, wow. Yeah. Congratulations. That's- Thanks ... so awesome. We just had a girl.
Angela Vranich: Nice. Yeah. What are your other two?
Sean: Both boys.
Angela Vranich: Aw.
Sean: Both older brothers, yeah. Yeah. That's- Which has been really awesome and so sweet with them having a sister and being obsessed-
Angela Vranich: I'm sure. Do you guys have a dog? We have a dog, and so I'm wondering how the transition is gonna be.
Sean: We don't.
Angela Vranich: Okay, our dog is like our child. He's six, and-
Sean: I don't know. I'll t- I'll give you like a, a hot take that maybe you'll hate. I feel like that changes. That'll change, obviously. Yeah. Yeah. But it's so potently like, because we have friends who've had dogs before having kids- Mm-hmm ... and then watching after they have kids, yeah, your relationship with your dog will change drastically. Yeah. I think.
Angela Vranich: Yeah. I'm sure it will, but we'll lean in. He loves- Yeah ... new people. I think he'll be excited to be a big brother.
Sean: It's not, it's not like, uh, I'm not saying it in a negative way. I just mean like- No. Yeah ... the dynamics are different, so it's more- For sure ... like, yeah, like a supporting role versus like main character vibe- Mm-hmm ... right now.
Angela Vranich: Makes sense.
Sean: Yeah. What do you think it's gonna be like for you with the company balancing being a parent and running a large company at this point?
Angela Vranich: Yeah. I think, um- I think honestly it'll be okay. I think it'll be I think it'll be good.
Sean: Such a good response.
Angela Vranich: Yeah. No, I think, we're, we're... I mean, we're at a point now, you know, like we have 109 people on the team. Our team is amazing, so like I... We've-- Ben and I have really like worked, you know, the last few years especially to build a team around us where like we feel like we can step away if we need to, or like if we wanted to go on a vacation and go off the grid, which we never do, but like if we wanted to do that- like we totally could and like nothing would catch on fire. Um, and like we totally trust, you know, everyone to kind of run with things. But I mean, I really enjoy working and so does he, and it's like it's, it, it is our lives. Like it is our whole lives. And so I think, you know, we'll... Things will change, but I think we'll still, you know, really enjoy working. We'll, we'll obviously have help and I think I'll be... I would just be so bored if I didn't have, you know, my work to, to keep me-
Sean: I feel like it'll make your work more interesting now.
Angela Vranich: Yeah, and more meaningful, for sure. Yeah. For sure.
Sean: Yeah. wow. So awesome. Congrats on everything.
Angela Vranich: Thanks.
Sean: Crazy, crazy trajectory. Do you guys have like visions of selling the brand, I'm assuming?
Angela Vranich: Maybe eventually one day. I mean, now we're-- we've barely scratched the surface with retail, so we're only in Target. We're gonna continue to kind of grow our retail presence. We have big product roadmap aspirations, so, you know, whether it's a sale, an IPO, maybe we just continue, you know, profitably running the business. Maybe I'll be doing this in 20 years. I don't know. pass it down to my kids. but yeah, I mean, we, we don't really have, you know, one goal or one plan in mind. we're building a brand that we want to last for generations, so.
Sean: How, how much funding did you guys end up raising over the course? You guys, I think, are profitable now, right?
Angela Vranich: Yes. Yeah, we are. We've raised about $70 million to date. Wow. Yeah. raised a good bit of money.
Sean: Wow.
Angela Vranich: Which, you know, it's an operationally intense business, so it's- Yeah ... you know, necessary to, to raise that money. But we have great investors behind us.
Sean: Are you- are you heavily involved in that process, I'm assuming?
Angela Vranich: I'm not as involved as my husband. He's-- I was more involved in the early days when we were raising kind of our early funding. But, now Ben luckily takes over that part. I get to do, like, all the fun stuff, you know? I don't have to worry about, worry about the-
Sean: What a great setup.
Angela Vranich: Yeah, it's, it's really nice. It's re- it's really fun.
Sean: What a great setup. Um, wow. Okay. I mean, do you-- are you guys still raising rounds now, or are you beyond, beyond that?
Angela Vranich: We're not currently raising now. I think, you know, as we think about scaling in retail, certainly, you know, we might raise a little more money, but we're in a good place operationally now. So I think time will tell. Just de- really depends on what direction we wanna take the business in and how fast we wanna continue growing.
Sean: Is your focus right now on expanding with Target as your marquee partner?
Angela Vranich: Yeah, so we have a lot of really exciting product launches coming up with Target later this year, continuing to launch more stuff with them, like custom things that we've developed alongside some of their buyers that I'm really excited for. just continuing in general to go like deeper and wider with our existing customer base on the D2C side, and then, you know, looking at, at going into some additional retailers as well. So when we launched in Target, we had a year-long exclusive with them, which will be up in a couple of months, and, you know, looking to bring Little Spoon to more homes and more stores, so.
Sean: That's awesome. I was gonna ask you, are you guys, like, constantly saying no to other retailers, I would assume?
Angela Vranich: We've had a lot of retailers, you know, knocking on our door, especially with the success of, of the Target partnership. So it's really... Yeah, it's a matter of h- how do we... You know, we don't, we don't wanna, like, blanket retail and be in 10,000 doors overnight. We really wanna, like, be intentional about which retailers we're partnering with and where we're going. so yeah, we've, we've had a lot of conversations and, it's, like, honestly been, like, a very pinch me moment to, like, kind of be on that side of the table, because in the early days, we were, like, begging Whole Foods to, you know, take our product in and, you know, thinking about other retailers that we would love to have Little Spoon in, and no one was interested in speaking to us. But now to, like, have really been able to, you know, build a successful brand, have awesome products, show the traction in Target and, you know, have people coming to us saying, like, "We wanna sell Little Spoon," is, surreal.
Sean: That is so cool. Really cool, the flip of momentum that you have.
Angela Vranich: We, we had this-- I won't say who the retailer is, but we met with a retailer in person couple months ago, and we f- me and a couple other people on our team flew down to meet them. They had this, like, massive boardroom, like 15 people. They had this whole presentation up on, like, why we should partner with them and why- Wow ... and I was just like, "This is insane." Like-
Sean: Yeah, it's like the reverse meeting.
Angela Vranich: Yeah. Like, actually pinch me.
Sean: Did you guys have a deck for that meeting or no?
Angela Vranich: We, we did. We prepared a deck, but, like, they came prepared. You like- They knew all about us and had, you know, taken stuff off of our website and our social media, and they were really selling us on why we should partner with them, and I was like, "Oh."
Sean: What a crazy experience. You're like, "Yeah, we actually didn't make a deck." Yeah. "We knew. We knew this is how it would be."
Angela Vranich: Right. We just showed up.
Sean: Uh, I feel like you guys are at the very beginning with the, the retail arc too. Does it feel weird for you knowing that you're 10 years, nine, 10 years in, and that it's like just now getting to be at the like mass adoption phase?
Angela Vranich: Yeah. Yeah, it does feel a little weird 'cause I'm like, wow, I've been really doing this for a long time. Even though it doesn't feel, it really doesn't feel that long. But like when you think back to the tamale factory days, it's like, wow, I really have been doing this for a long time and like we've, we've barely scratched the surface of retail. Like it's cool because we're not at a, at a place where we're like plateaued and I'm like, "Ugh, I'm bored." Like, you know, it's, it's this whole new frontier, so it's really cool to be able to think, okay, now we're gonna go into X, Y, and Z retailer and here's how we're gonna market it. And it's just, it's, it's an opportunity to bring Little Spoon to a whole new set of families and, and an audience who hasn't experienced us yet. So it's really, it's really just fun. Like I feel very... Despite the fact that I've been doing it for so long, I feel like invigorated and excited for the next chapter.
Sean: One question on s- setting up the brand to have leverage like that. Mm-hmm. How do you feel like you've been able to scale direct to consumer with the ad costs rising, always rising? And making that profitable in order to hit a scale where you could flip the tables. Is it that your customers come back so often and for so long that the ad costs haven't hurt you?
Angela Vranich: That's, that's exactly why. I mean, we've been able to age up with our customers and sell them more products, you know, as their kids get older and as they have more children. So like when we launched with just baby food, our average order value was about $50. Today, it's over $110. And I think, you know, i- in the early days, we were paying to acquire customers. Babies only eat baby food for a finite period of time, maybe six months if you're lucky. So as fast as we were acquiring them, they were churning out. And so we knew we needed to like create this whole platform of products to really like make that CAC work harder for us and keep them on our platform for as long as we could, and we've really seen that proven out. So today we have like a whole system of meals where people will come to us for baby food, now will come to us for infant formula, hopefully start with us on infant formula, move to baby food. We have transition to table meals, which are like little cut-to-size pieces of food that are, you know, designed to help kids learn how to transition to table food. We have our ready-to-heat meals for toddlers, and then like alongside that, we have a whole host of snacks. So like baby snacks, baby cereal, smoothies in a pouch, yogurt, older kid snacks that, are, you know, easy add-ons and easy add to box. And so I think just the ability to retain that customer for that long of a period has, has really like-- Yeah, that's been kind of our secret sauce.
Sean: That's incredible. Well, congratulations on everything, and thank you for hanging out for that hour. Thank you.
Angela Vranich: Thanks for having me.
Sean: Yeah. It was a great time, and I would love to stay in touch and do a follow-up as you IPO. Yeah. Maybe one day. We'll see. Okay, perfect.
Sean: Read Receipt.