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Advice Line with Ben Goodwin of Olipop

How I Built This with Guy Raz48m 1s

Ben Goodwin, co-founder of Olipop, serves as an advisor on a show where entrepreneurs call in with business challenges. The episode features three callers seeking advice on education and marketing strategies, managing growth as a solo founder, and revitalizing a struggling food co-op.

Summary

This episode of 'The Advice Line' features Ben Goodwin, co-founder of the prebiotic soda brand Olipop (valued at over $2 billion), advising callers on various business challenges. Goodwin discusses Olipop's recent rebrand and national ad campaign, designed to better communicate the brand's mission layers and reach wider demographics including men and older consumers. He explains that Olipop operates with approximately 280 employees as an entirely remote, distributed organization with no physical office, and aspires to reach $1 billion in gross revenue.

The first caller, Darren Alpert of Ghee-lish, has grown a snack brand made with organic ghee from zero to 4,000 stores in two years using only bootstrapped funding and cold outreach. He seeks advice on educating consumers about ghee as an ingredient, which is unfamiliar to most people. Goodwin and Guy Raz advise him to prioritize taste and comparative nutritional claims (fewer calories, less fat) on the front of packaging, and to save deeper ingredient storytelling for the back of the package, QR codes, and social media—reserving complex ingredient education for engaged evangelist consumers.

The second caller, Sarah Godfrey of Sarah's Gluten-Free Goods, operates a cottage food business from her home, earning $20,000 in net profit in her first year. She sells fresh, never-frozen gluten-free baked goods tailored to multiple allergies at farmer's markets and small local grocery stores, and seeks advice on how to scale while maintaining freshness and avoiding the perishability issues of frozen products. Goodwin and Raz recommend she focus on squeezing more output from her current bootstrapped setup before raising capital, suggest she approach small business loans rather than equity or grants for future expansion, and emphasize that she needs to assess her true commitment level and risk tolerance before scaling significantly.

The third caller, John Groner, recently joined the board of Bexley Natural Market, a 50-year-old food co-op in Ohio that has declined to half its pre-pandemic sales following mismanagement. He invested significant time photographing thousands of products for a website but received minimal traction from e-commerce efforts. Goodwin and Raz advise against heavy promotion of e-commerce, arguing that the co-op's competitive advantage lies in curation, community connection, and unique local products—not competing with Kroger on convenience. They recommend leveraging the store's unique position through community events (meet-the-farmer days), emphasizing the shopping experience and emotional connection, and curating products carefully rather than expanding SKUs.

In closing, Goodwin reflects on entrepreneurial psychology, advising that founders should learn to trust their instincts while calibrating how they work with them, and recognize that successful entrepreneurs have something special that the world may not initially recognize.

About this episode

<p>Today’s callers: Darin from North Carolina seeks guidance on consumer education as his ghee-based snack brand grows into major retailers. Then Sarah from Massachusetts explores scaling pathways for her ‘never-frozen’ gluten-free baked goods. And John from Ohio considers whether online sales can turn around his local food co-op.&nbsp;</p><p>Plus, Ben comments on the drivers of Olipop’s nearly $2 billion valuation, and critiques a common piece of business advice that often holds founders back.&nbsp;</p><p>Thank you to the founders of Gheelish, Sarah’s Gluten Free Goods, and Bexley’s Natural Foods for being a part of our show.</p><p>If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode—where Guy and former show guests take questions from early-stage founders—leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to [email protected] or call 1-800-433-1298.</p><p>And be sure to listen to <a href="https://rss.art19.com/episodes/14342273-8d67-46d8-a59f-3bba347f5c72.mp3" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Olipop’s founding story</a> as told by Ben in 2024.</p><p>This episode was produced by Kerry Thompson with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineers were Cena Loffredo and Robert Rodriguez.&nbsp;</p><p>You can follow HIBT on <a href="https://x.com/HowIBuiltThis" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">X</a> &amp; <a href="https://www.instagram.com/howibuiltthis/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Instagram</a> and sign up for Guy’s free newsletter at <a href="http://guyraz.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">guyraz.com</a> or on <a href="https://guyraz.substack.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Substack</a>.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>See Privacy Policy at <a href="https://art19.com/privacy" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://art19.com/privacy</a> and California Privacy Notice at <a href="https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info</a>.</p>

Key Insights

  • Goodwin argues that consumer taste preference should be the first filter when evaluating a product's market viability—if a product doesn't win blind taste tests against major competitors in its category, structural arguments about ingredients become largely irrelevant to mainstream consumers.
  • Goodwin contends that front-of-package messaging should prioritize broad-stroke comparative benefits (fewer calories, less fat, better taste) while reserving deeper ingredient storytelling for back-of-package, QR codes, and social media to reach only engaged consumers.
  • Goodwin claims that for early-stage founders facing growth stress, the priority should be maximizing output from existing bootstrapped capacity before raising capital, as every capital path (debt or equity) introduces its own significant stress and obligations.
  • Goodwin argues that food co-ops and small grocery stores compete with chain stores not through e-commerce convenience but through product curation, community experience, and unique local sourcing that large retailers cannot replicate.
  • Goodwin believes that many entrepreneurs are hardwired to reject the phrase 'that's market' as a justification for compromise, and that pushing to do better rather than accepting industry standards has been core to Olipop's success.
  • Goodwin suggests that the co-op's competitive advantage lies in the emotional and social dimensions of shopping—community connection, meeting farmers, and trusting curation—rather than in digital convenience features.
  • Goodwin indicates that as a remote-first company operating without a central office, Olipop has successfully built remote culture that thrives without reverting to traditional office structures despite investor pressure.
  • Goodwin contends that small business loans from credit unions may be more appropriate for early-stage founders than equity funding or grants, as they avoid the complexity and commitment issues associated with taking on investors while still providing needed capital.

Topics

Consumer education and marketing for unfamiliar ingredientsE-commerce strategy for small retail businessesScaling and growth management for bootstrapped foundersCommunity-focused retail and co-op business modelsBrand positioning and packaging strategyFounder psychology and trusting entrepreneurial instinctsCapital raising alternatives: bootstrapping vs. debt vs. equityProduct perishability and shelf-life challenges in food businesses

Transcript

This episode is brought to you by JustWorks, one platform that handles the complicated stuff, payroll, benefits, global hiring, and makes running a small business 1 million percent smoother. Stick around. I'll tell you more later in the show. Building a business means being 10 people at once, the strategist, the spreadsheet person, the one fixing the office sink. U.S. Bank made a card for exactly that kind of hustle. The creditor and issuer of this card is U.S. Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from Visa USA, Inc. Some restrictions apply. Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your…

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