The number one question people ask us when they find out that it's protein couscous is like, "How do you add protein in there?" And it's all natural. Like, we just use three ingredients: chickpeas, lentils, and peas. And we're not infusing it with anything. There's no xanthan gum. There's no filler. So, like, the product speaks for itself. And so it felt great to like get that recognition regardless of like how it was featured.

Hey everybody, this is Caitlin Bricker, managing editor at Startup CPG. We are back with another founder feature. Today I'm sitting down with Bar Bruhis, founder of Boostcous, the world's first better for you couscous with 18 g of protein and 11 g of fiber. Bar was born in Israel, grew up eating couscous, and spent 2 years formulating a version that actually tastes good and has benefits. And he's doing it using just three simple ingredients: chickpeas, lentils, and peas with zero fillers or xanthan gum. He comes from a DTC and SAS background and launched direct to consumer to prove product market fit first, hitting 10,000 Shopify orders in 6 months.

We're diving into his immigrant mentality and why he built such a strong network early. His genius post-purchase survey question that got him a call with a Costco buyer, why he's now in Lieber's Locavore and pitching Whole Foods in Walmart, and what he's learned from his first trade show at Summer Fancy Food. We hear from founders on this podcast every week. If you're a brand and want to get new opportunities right in your inbox, text CPG to 8336057002. That's 8336057002 and we'll get you hooked up. As always, enjoy. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast. This is Caitlyn and today I'm here with Bar Bruhis, founder of Boostcous. Bar, welcome to the show. Yeah, stoked to be here. Thanks for having me, Kaitlin.

I am psyched to have you here. You and I both know protein is everywhere. It's on everybody's minds. It's on everybody's plates hopefully. But you are doing something different than I've seen anybody doing in this space, which is a pretty unique accomplishment. So before we go any deeper, can you tell us what Boostcous is? Yeah. So, Boostcous is the world's first better for you couscous and it has 18 grams of protein, 11 grams of fiber per serving. And yeah, we're really excited to share a little bit more.

It's so interesting hearing you say the world's first better for you couscous because you would think a couscous is already better for you since it is essentially a single ingredient product. But what you have done I just had leftovers for lunch. It's great as leftovers and I had it for dinner. What you have done has been something like I said it's unlike anything I've seen before in this space. I just got to know more. So my first question for you is why couscous.

Yeah. I think I like just back to the world's first too. Like I feel like I saw a Slack message from you or something at one point where like everyone says it's or LinkedIn. Yeah. I was like, "Everyone says world's first, but we're like actually the first like better for you couscous." So, like I sometimes am hesitant to say that just because I feel like it's overdone, but yeah, I appreciate you trying the product and that's awesome. You had some for dinner and leftovers. Yeah. So, I was born in Israel. That's where the name bar comes from.

And lived there until I was 8 and grew up eating couscous. I've always loved like how quick and easy it is to make. Like just even a regular couscous, it cooks in 5 minutes. You know, it's really versatile. You can eat it hot or cold. Like either in a salad cold or like hot like I use it as a rice replacement like you know put it your stir fry on top of it. It just kind of soaks up that like entire dish's flavor. And I just kind of like always loved everything about it. And as I got older I like kept coming back to it as kind of like a recovery meal.

I do a ton of I live out in Colorado and do a ton of like mountain biking and skiing and you know all these activities that like kind of require you to have like good nutrition after. And and then I just kind of realized that there wasn't like a better for you option out there. Like I'd go to the couscous aisle and see literally like no one has like done anything in that aisle while at the same time like when all over in the pasta it's like some incredible businesses right like Bonsza goodles so many incredible businesses have made like a better for you pasta.

the idea of like, hey, can we do something that's better for you on the couscous out? And it took two years to formulate it and yeah, we launched six months ago and here we are.

Okay. You launched 6 months ago, but what did this process look like for you from inception from the concept that you had for Boostcous today?

One of the most common questions we get asked is like what is couscous a grain? And it's actually not a grain. It's just semolina of flour and water, right? So, it's essentially pasta. So the way we started was hey can we like infuse protein into this like pasta you know maybe we started with pea protein we started with pumpkin seed protein and we're just doing like experiments in the kitchen and like there's probably like a hundred plus batches that we tried and every single one I'd get so stoked on and I'd try it and it didn't taste good or hurt my stomach and like I'd like trick myself into thinking that it was like okay and then I'd let my girlfriend or a friend try it and they'd be like, "No, this sucks." Um,

true friends.

So then,

yeah, true friends. Yeah. Um, and essentially we're like, "Okay, is anyone else doing this?" We found that like actually in Italy there is like a small manufacturer that's doing protein couscous. And like right away I was like, "Okay, someone else is actually doing this. This is like proof." And like, "Can we get some samples?" We got samples, talked to them, and we were actually on track to like white label their product and private label it. And then Trump tariffs hit last year and then like that entire like model just didn't work. We would have had to charge like $10 per box.

I was like no one's going to buy that. And so then we went back to essentially like can we use a co-man in the US and do this and we eventually found a co-man that was willing to work with us and was it willing to like kind of work on a minimum order quantity with us and just kind of like sent it and said okay like me and my co-founder each put in a little bit of money and we said okay like if we lose this money like we're okay with it. it's like essentially like burning this money, but if like this is the only amount of money we're willing to put in, we're going to like see if there's product market fit.

So, yeah, that's kind of how we got to like having a product.

And your process now, you've just recently come from DTOC to trying to get on store shelves. Am I correct in saying that?

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, we launched technically it was like the end of November, but I just say December cuz it was like pretty much the end of November like after Thanksgiving kind of thing. So we launched in December, you know, it's about 6 and a half months ago. So my background is also in direct to consumer mostly on the software side of things. And I knew right away that like I wanted to start in direct to consumer. One to prove like if there's product market fit like can we acquire customers profitably there and two to learn from the customer, right?

Like retail is amazing and at the end of the day this product like it's insane. Like we just crossed 10,000 orders on our Shopy store. It's no way should that be possible, right? Like I personally like don't think that I would buy six boxes of couscous online. But like obviously 10,000 people have done that. So like that's product market fit. Yeah, you did as well. Yeah, thanks for the support. But like at the end of the day like couscous is like a retail pantry staple. like you go, you find a recipe, you go buy a box, put in your pantry, maybe you buy two boxes.

So the problem with retail like for me early on is like you're not connected to that consumer. So you don't get that feedback, right? Like who is your customer? What do they like? What do they not like? What like direction do they want to see you in? What do they resonate with? And so yeah, I knew I wanted to start in direct to consumer so that we could like very quickly learn from our consumer, iterate really quickly and in that way once we're on shelf, we like already know what's working and you know have good confidence there would be velocity there too.

I have so many things I want to touch on with you. First I just want to ask you have this background in DTC which I would love to talk about and love to touch on. Before we do that, can you just tell us what it looked like to start from the absolute bottom four with this brand? What did you put in place to help set yourself up to success for success from platforms to advertising to where you are today?

Yeah. So, yeah, in terms of like e-commerce, like I personally think that you have to be on Shopify. There's other platforms out there, but like Shopify just makes it so easy and they're like affordable for brand new new brands. And then in terms of like customer acquisition, like if you're just getting started, like you got to just focus on meta. We've played around with others like Google and there's, you know, Snap, whatever. There's like a million other things, but like if you are going from zero to one, like you got to like your audience, your future customer lives either on Facebook or Instagram.

And so that's how we got started. The cool thing about Meta in recent years is that like you can literally spy on anyone. Like you can just go to the Facebook ads library and you can just like go look at whatever brand you want to look at and you can see what ads they're running. And you know to start like I just started with static ads, right? Static is essentially just going to be like an image. And I just looked to see like hey what are these brands that I like respect and look up to? What like what static ads are they using?

And I just like recreated them that same similar format for Boo Goose, right? Like stealing anything from them, just like like obviously these are brands that spend millions of dollars a month and like if they figured it out like it's going to work for us too. And so yeah, started with static ads and then moved into like more video ads and like our top performing ad is something that like I shot and edited and you know so on and so forth. But yeah, those like Shopify Meta, we use Claio for email and we use Aaliyah for a popup.

Like to get started, I think you you should just start with like minimum cost. Like I'm a firm believer that like you know you can use Canva to like even now with AI like you can use chat GBT image generator, Gemini's image generator and like feed it an input, feed it your product, get an output of an ad, upload it to meta, but like you should not be spending a lot of money up front. Like you should be, you know, grinding and trying to do it as frugally as possible. So those are kind of the platforms that I used. And did you have a pre-sale or pre-orders before you actually went live or did you just full send launch your product into the world DTOC?

Yeah. So, you know, I think when we first were launching, I had this grand plan of like I'm going to reach out to all these creators and like do this like big launch strategy and then eventually I was like whatever. like there's thousands of CPG brands out there in order for us to stand like if this product is good enough like it will stand out and so yeah we just we didn't do a pre-sale or anything you know I was working on the idea for like you know call it a year and a half to two years and boogiew.com I bought that domain right away because that name is like also a big part of the brand and for you know a year and a half or two years like while we were working on the ideation it was just a splash like landing page of like you know here's what we want to build.

If you're interested, give me your email. And like, you know, I would just like casually be talking to someone. It's like, "Oh, what do you do?" And I'm like, "I do this, but I'm actually passionate about this." And they're like, "Oh, what's it called?" And they're like, "Oh, booies.com." Like, put your email in and like when we launch, I'll email it to you. So, I think we got like 500 or 600 emails through that. And then yeah, once we launched, we kind of like Andrea from Snackshot like tweeted it and that got like a 100,000 impressions and a New York Time Recorder like you know posted about it and none of that was planned but we got like some virality around it but you know none of that is scalable or repeatable but it's like nice to have that like first sales bump and and then yeah we just kept growing from there.

It is really exciting to see that organic discovery like with Snapshot and Andrea and in other places too because it doesn't feel like it's planted. It doesn't feel like a force like it's something that you're forced to discover. It feels like something that you are meant to discover. Like somebody's found this. They think it's so cool. They're sharing it. They're organically talking about it. What did that feel like to you to get that recognition and be like, "Oh my god, I'm featured. Look at this. Yeah. You know, it's kind of funny like and I've been following Andrea for so long like you know all those Nate Rosen like all those like food like CP like shout out to all them.

They're like incredible. Subscribe to their newsletter and they post like such great content. The funny thing is that like when I Andrea posted it, it was kind of like not like a whack, but it was more of protein thing is overdone. Like I think everyone sees that, right? Like, you know, I think in general, like the protein trend, like anytime there is a trend, there's going to be like too much of something, right? And like I'm not saying that I've just seen like some products where it's like, oh, like does protein really need to be in that, you know?

And so like that was kind of like how we got Yeah. Like anyway, so like Andrea posted it kind of as like, oh, and now we have protein couscous kind of thing. And like all the a lot of the comments were kind of around that as well. But it was a good lesson of like any eyeball is a good eyeball and any press is good press. And you know like at the end of the day we do like our product. The number one question people ask us when they find out that it's protein couscous like how do you add protein in there?

And it's all natural. Like we just use three ingredients. Chickpeas, lentils, and peas. And we're not infusing it with anything. There's no xanthan gum. There's no filler. So like the product speaks for itself. And so it felt great to like get that recognition regardless of like how it, you know, how it was featured.

It's like, oh, they're putting protein in couscous, but now it's like, oh, they're putting protein in couscous, and now I want that. [laughter]

Yeah, exactly. Um, yeah. So, yeah, it was great. And and shout out to Andrea. She's she's amazing. Yeah, it's cool to see creators like Andrea Nate from Express Checkout, Kelly Bennett, we have Tyler from Bipox CPG. I mean, the list is endless. And the really fun thing about being in this community is that these people are scouting products and this is like a fun thing for them to do. I am one of those people. I love discovering new products and be like, damn, have you seen this? Like, look at the branding. And then when you get to see how it actually tastes and experience the product, it's like, oh my god.

But I feel like part of the charm behind Boous is like you have this very confident personality about you. You and I have only met I think twice in person now and we're talking as if we've known each other for years. And I think that that carries on into your products, too. Like it's a single skew and it is a confident product. You're like, "Hey, look at me. I'm good at what I do and I need to know more." Like, let's peel back the layers. You mentioned that you have this background in D TOC. I think it's going to be really enlightening for the audience to know more about you and why you have become so good at what you're doing and why Boous has taken off like it has.

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I think all growth is relative, right? Like I think we're happy with our growth, but it's like there's companies that are growing even faster than us and there's companies that grow like slower than us. We're happy where we are. I think for me, yeah, like background is definitely like a piece of the equation. I've always been entrepreneurial. I was born in Israel, moved to Buffalo, like came from like nothing. My dad like actually when we moved like didn't have enough money to buy a house and couldn't get a mortgage because we're like immigrants without like a checking account and like was lucky enough to get the more like his first job that he got in Buffalo like the person that hired him like essentially like loaned him the money and took it out of his paycheck.

So like I come from this like immigrant mentality and immigrant mindset. I think that, you know, like work hard, have good ethics, like create a good product and like don't like try to cheat your way around it and just be a good human and good soul and like treat everyone with kindness no matter who they are or like what their beliefs are. And so, you know, I think that's like a a core part of it. And then yeah, you know, in college I started a company that failed and then like I ended up being like one of the first hires at the first email capture tool for Shopify in 2015.

And back then, Shopify was like super small. You know, no one was really using it and just kind of kept building in that space. And like I think really early on in my career, I always knew that like your network is your net worth. And like one of my first mentors was the guy that hired me in Austin. His name's Noah Kagan. And he's like, you know, popular like creator and all that. And like I just always saw like how he had such an incredible network. And yeah, I just wanted to keep building that. And so throughout my entire career, I always like wanted to connect with the like people that were doing it and like crushing it.

And yeah, most recently I left no in March, but I kind of helped get off the ground this company called KnoCommerce, which is the premier post-purchase survey tool for e-commerce brands. And essentially what that means is just like a survey tool where you can ask like how'd you hear about us, like things like that. And we use it very heavily. I can share some like use cases. But yeah, through that I was able to connect with like you know the entire Grun's team which they just exited for 1.2 billion like the IQ bar team you know like Oats overnight like everyday dose like all of these incredible incredible brands and then I actually like started an event out of that like kind of like full circle moment.

I like was like okay I have these connections. I really much value human connection, especially in like this age of AI. Like I obviously use it, but like I think there you can't supplement human connection and and I live just outside of Aspen and in this town called Carbonale. I love skiing and so I actually ended up starting this event business called DASKI.com. We like got these sponsors and flew out like the biggest brands in the world to Aspen. I was able to connect with them and like this past year like these you know in that world of like SAS there's just so much money and one of the sponsors like let us use their private jet to fly out people from New York to Aspen and so like through that I was like able to just connect with like literally the brightest minds in CPG and yeah all those people are now advisers to me like you know when I have a question I can just like text them and so I think that's you know this isn't like oh like I have a co-founder too who's amazing he's one of my best friends, but like yeah, all this kind of like leads into the success that we have today is again like I think your network is your net worth.

I think that's really good advice because you just never know where you're going to end up in life and being able to fall back on that network that you've built. And then even just like you're saying, if you need to shoot somebody a text and say, "Hey, I'm stuck on this or I could really use some help with this." Then you have these people who are ready to catch you when you're going to fall. I guess you could say

100%. Yeah, it's so helpful. Like even like this past week, we I shot a cold email to Costco and they responded and like I can share like what that email is cuz other people should steal this strategy too, but like

Yes, please tell us. Um, yeah. So, I genuinely believe that every brand should start on direct to consumer because if you can, if you're parish, obviously you can't do that, but if you can start on direct to consumer, you can learn so much about your customers and you should run a post-purchase survey. And the one question you should ask is what retail stores would you like to see like your brand, Boostcous, in? And I now have like 45% of our customers answer that post-purchase survey, which is like always surprising to people. And now I have a list of our top 10 retailers.

And I literally just Costco's number one. Like I don't need to make that up. Like our consumer wants to see us in Costco. And I just screenshotted that and said, "Hey, our customer like we had 2,000 people say that they want to see us in Costco. What can we do about that?" And I got like on a call with a buyer like 3 days later and now it sounds like we might like, you know, it's obviously still very early stages, but we're trying to do some sort of like road show with them. Yeah, we'll see. It's just that easy.

Yeah, just take a screenshot, send an email.

Amazing. Can you just repeat the question that you would hope that all these brands are asking in their postconsumer survey?

Yeah, you know, I think you can word it like different ways. I think the way I have it worded is retail stores would you like to see your brand? Ours is Boostcous in and I think what I have is I have a list of like 15 stores and then an option for other as well. So, like we get like some super small like co-op or mom and pop like one store retailer that like someone in Oklahoma wants us to be in and it's great like now I reach out to that person too. But it is incredible deal flow for like the retail side of things.

It's such a smart question to ask and it immediately gives your brand legs and then you can go back to those customers and say, "Hey, we're making it happen. You can find us in real life. Here you go."

Exactly. Yeah. Close the loop. That's the most important part.

So, as a brand that's been mostly DTOC, you now have been making some IRL appearances. I've seen you twice now. First time was at Lever's Local War at our Denver grocery run. It's the first time we ever did an event like that. It was a public event versus a private event. So, you and I think 20 other brands were sampling on the floor. And you just like many of the other brands there, majority of the brands were not yet in retail doors. You were not yet in lever. So this was a first instance for levers to try your product and also a first instance for all of these customers who are already lever customers to try your products and you have some pretty cool news to share about that experience too.

So tell us what your experience was like at that event and then the outcome of it too. So yeah, shout out Startup CPG. Like all the events you guys do are incredible and either free or super cheap for brands and like if you're listening, you should get involved ASAP, especially as an early brand. But yeah, the experience was incredible. We, you know, that was the first time we ever sampled Boogus to like the open public just because we've always been direct to consumer. We'd never like actually made product and like given it out. So it was on the busu side a really good learning to like how do we sample this thing and we since levers made some adjustments and then yeah it was incredible to get the feedback from customers.

I think the best part was that we actually had a lot of people that like already knew us and had seen ads for us and like wanted to like try the product but like and so we like converted customers right there and then which was great. And then yeah, obviously like connecting with the Levers team was great. And now we're actually in Levers. We're on shelf there. So if you're a network, go go go buy some. And that experience is actually kind of funny cuz we like I had emailed Ray who's the buyer and he like sent us all these forms.

And then like I didn't even fill out the forms and they bought it through fair and it turns out that they just onboarded onto fair and are like buying through there which is incredible. So also shout out fair if you're a small brand or any brand should be on there. They're they're incredible. Very cool. And congratulations. That was huge. That was like a very competitive event for a lot of the brands that were participating because I think they only took in five or six brands from the start. They may have been onboarding more brands and maybe onboarding more brands as we speak, but to see your name in the first round was pretty cool.

Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. And went to Denver a couple months ago and like dropped off a box and got Ray's contact and then emailed him. So he like had already kind of known about us which was also helpful. Um so

perfect.

Yeah. But we're we're stoked to be there.

And then of course I just saw you at Summer Fancy Food which is I would assume Boous' first major trade show. Am I right in saying that?

Yeah, you're right.

And how did it go for you?

Yeah, that was also great. We were not in the startup CPG section this year. Maybe next year, but we got into the startup pavilion through Fancy Food and they were incredible. like they put us in like the fourth floor kind of like right in the in the entrance and like it was a really like high foot trafficked area and yeah out of that now we're talking to Whole Foods and Walmart and like Fresh Market and honestly I need to look through my email cuz I need I have all these follow-ups but um yeah it's incredible. The biggest lesson is that like especially these big retailers, there's literally like one maybe two humans that sit inside those retailers that can change the trajectory of your entire business, right?

Like this one person that gets pitched thousands of brands like makes a decision on whether or not you'll be on shelf. And so it's really hard to make that connection with that human unless you're in the room with that person. And so I mean that's the value of trade shows obviously like if you can make connections with that person other ways you can do that but like for us that was kind of the biggest takeaway was yeah and and the other piece of that is like other CPG brands are just like so awesome and so nice and it's like we made so many friends in the industry and it's like we're all going through this together it's like not easy. So good to like kind of to make those friends that way

and there's your network expanding right before your eyes. There you go. Yeah, full circle.

All right, so we're coming up on time, but I am super curious to hear from you as a brand that's finally dipping your toes into the retail pond. What retailers are you looking to target? What type of retailers? And if there are any dream retailers on your radar that you want to say hello to right now that might be listening, tell us what you're looking for in a retailer and why a retailer should consider Boous for their shelves.

Yeah, I'm actually I'm like looking at my whiteboard over there cuz I have like my end ofear goals and it's Costco Whole Foods by end of year is one of my goals and I think Target like I wrote that like a while ago but I think Target would be added into that list as well. Yeah, I think there's a couple of reasons like especially the Whole Foods buyer. It's, you know, what we've seen is like we've got kind of like two or three major demographics. One is going to be that gluten-free market. We're the only gluten-free and world's first gluten-free couscous.

And we see so many gluten-free individuals that like haven't been able to eat couscous in so long that are finally able to eat it again. And like if you look through our reviews, that's like one of our top demographics. The other one is like moms with kids like feeding it to their kids and feeding it for themselves. It's like, yeah, there you go. Yeah. It's like no choking hazard. It's like, you know, this might be a TMI, but like I was at a bar the other day with one of my friends that has like a toddler and she's like, "Your Boostcous is literally what's keeping my toddler regular." Like I feed it to them and they like it and it's like they right away. I don't know if

nothing is TMI with moms or me just in general.

Perfect. Um, so anyway, yeah, I think that that that Whole Foods demographic is kind of like right up our alley. We've seen, especially again with our post-purchase surveys, we drive incremental sales into that couscous aisle because people are switching from other protein alternatives into couscous and like coming into the couscous aisle and we're the only and like first innovation in that aisle. So like when we sit next to whatever couscous is in there, like people just end up buying from us. So that's kind of the the reasoning for like Whole Foods and Target. Like I think Target is very much trying to be the new Whole Foods.

And then yeah, the Costco buyer, it's like yeah, I mean this is like you said, it's an incredible rice replacement and the kind of like meal prep. It heats up really well the next day. So that'd kind of be like our pitch for all three of them. And I think like at the end of the day it comes back to like we can show numbers that like all these people are buying from us and they shouldn't be online. And so we're really excited to flip that model and have more of our customers buying in retail.

This is definitely going to be an exciting discovery for retailers who haven't learned about you yet. So hopefully if they haven't yet, by the time they have ears and eyes on this episode, they will be so excited to carry you. That's that's my hope coming out of this. and we can do another another episode when that happens.

All right, brain check for that. [laughter]

Keep me updated.

I love it.

Bar, it's been so fun talking to you. We are fans in our household. You have quickly become a staple. I pretty sure we have eaten boos three nights already this week and it's only Tuesday. So, if that says anything, there you go.

I love it. Well, thanks so much for the support. We really appreciate it and yeah, this is such a fun conversation. Thanks, Alen.

Thank you. I'll catch you soon. CPG BFFs, we've now arrived together at the end of another episode of the Startup CPG podcast. As you may know, we're not just the top globally ranked CPG podcast. We're a community of tens of thousands of CPG founders and experts, and you should join us if you haven't already. Head to startupcpg.com to sign up. You'll get an invite to our Slack community, hear about events near you, and get access to opportunities that connect you with buyers, investors, and other brands. It's free, so what are you waiting for? I'll see you in Slack and in real life. Thanks for listening.

We can actually be first-order profitable on our website on a CPG product. Like, that doesn't really happen. The biggest opportunity is actually like learning from your customer, right? As we grow, we're going to be going into retail, and like that connection point with the customer is not going to be there anymore. Like, we won't be able to learn from them. And so, I take that opportunity to ask as many questions as we can. What's important to you and why did you buy today? What almost prevented you from buying today? And then we also use the data to like fuel our retail growth. So, like one of the most important questions that I ask on our post-purchase survey is

Welcome to the DTC Podcast, Bar. I've been following your journey for a while here from you're at KnoCommerce, so you're on the SaaS side with the dream of building your own D2C brand. You took the leap, uh jumped into the protein craze that we're all living in right now with uh Boostcous. Welcome to the D2C podcast, man. Great to Great to meet you.

Yeah, dude. I've been following you guys for a while, too. So, I'm I'm stoked we could finally connect and um yeah, really excited to be here.

Nice. Well, walk me through your hero's journey. It's really near and dear to my heart. I have a number of sort of long-gestating projects that I haven't, you know, up the ante on and actually kicked into into actual uh production. And it's something that you've managed to do and you're seeing some great growth from it. So, walk me through your hero's journey with Boostcous.

So, yeah, I've been uh like you said, I've been like on the SaaS side of D2C for like 10 years now. Um you know, kind of started in uh email capture, helped start one of the the first email capture tools for Shopify in 2015, and uh most recently KnoCommerce, where we had a post-purchase survey tool that 6,500 Shopify brands use. And then, yeah, uh I was born in Israel. Uh that's where the name Bar comes from, and kind of always grew up eating couscous. It was like part of our staple in our in our diet. It's um you know, it's great.

It's really convenient to make. It takes 5 minutes to make, and it's really versatile. You can eat it like hot or cold, as a rice replacement. You can put it on your salad. And I always loved eating it even into my adulthood. I now live in Carbondale, in Colorado, and I do a ton of outside activity, mountain biking, back country skiing, a ton of things that like require calories. And I'd always come back from those activities looking for a recovery meal. And I always came back to couscous, kind of realized there wasn't like a healthy version of couscous, right?

Like there is in pasta. You've got Banza, Brami, now Goodles. But like, literally no one has ever tried to make couscous healthy. And yeah, just kind of got fixated on that idea, and took 2 years to kind of figure out sourcing, actual manufacturing, come out with a product that I was stoked on and that I would eat and I still do. I eat it like multiple times a week for lunches and dinners and yeah, ended up launching in December last year. So just about 6 months ago, launched direct to consumer and yeah, the rest is kind of history.

You know, now we've we're about to cross 10,000 orders and people obviously like are gravitating towards this product. We're solving a real need which I think is important. And it's like a real product. You know, it's like made from three simple ingredients. The And people are like changing their diet and that that part's been really fun to watch.

I actually in preparation for this podcast had couscous today for lunch. In my

[clears throat]

shawarma and it was quite delish. Didn't get any protein from it. Walk me through just real quick what couscous actually is and how you get protein cuz I always thought of it as like a pre-existing grain or something like that. But it's is it is it extruded through something and it's actually more like pasta than it is like all grain?

Yeah, good question. So regular couscous that you would just go buy at the store right now is actually just pasta. It's semolina flour and water. There's two different types of couscous. There's pearl or some people would call it Israeli couscous. That is essentially extruded similar to pasta and cooked similar to pasta. And there's Moroccan which is a little smaller of a grain and it's actually pre-cooked. You're just rehydrating it when when you're cooking it. Both of those are actually like have gluten in them, right? It's semolina flour and water. So when we went to go try to make we tried a bunch of different things.

First, we were like, hey, can we actually just like add protein? Like can we add pumpkin seed protein or a bunch of different types of protein sources into that grain? It didn't really come out that great and so yeah, what we have now is actually a fully gluten-free product and the protein just comes from the legume flowers that we use. So we use chickpea, lentil and pea flours, and and that's where the protein and fiber come from. So, it's all naturally deriving, and those those ingredients are non-GMO, glyphosate-free, as well. So, we try to use the the highest quality possible.

Talk to me about taking the leap. How long had this idea been gestating before you kind of pulled the trigger on your on your production run, essentially?

It probably took us 2 years from like ideation to launch. Um and the leap, you you know, we we came out with the the name Boostcous, so we kind of created a brand. I built a website on Replo, and then it was kind of like, "Hey, we need to like see if people will actually buy this." And I didn't want to do like the whole pre-sale thing and like tell people like we'll ship it to them. That was an idea at first, but it was like, you know, no matter what, we were going to have to figure out how to make this product, and that was a very, very lengthy process.

And then eventually it was just kind of like, "Hey, I actually think this is going to work. I'm willing to put up X amount of money, and if that money goes to zero, I'm okay with it, but I need to scratch this itch and see if people actually care." And so, that's when we spent the money on our first production run. Um luckily, we have uh good payment terms with all of our suppliers, so, you know, we had at least net 30 with most of our suppliers. So, before we actually had to make the payment, we were able to start selling our Boostcous on website as well.

So, we did have to put in some money, but it was it was a little bit hedged since we could like start selling directly online before we had to pay for the invoice.

And then so, that's where the first really positive si- aside from maybe friends and family, the first really positive signals that this was a product people were going to buy came from literally launching it?

Yeah, I mean, you know, obviously like friends and family, but um yeah, just launching it was the first time that we got positive signal from the market.

And describe to me how how did that go out of the gate?

Yeah, um so, a couple of things. One, we live in a small little mountain town, like there's 20,000 people that live in this like valley from Aspen to Glenwood Springs. I reached out to one of the newspaper publications here and told them my story, kind of pitched them on it. We were able to get a front page article on there and what I did was instead of like having them go to our website and have it shipped, they I for the first week actually put on free shipping, just come pick it up from my house. And so I had a bunch of units in my garage.

Our first like like 400 or 500 orders came from that, which was really exciting. We had two different newspaper publications that were like posted about us. And it was really cool to like interact with customers, too. Like actually face-to-face ask them like, "Hey, why are you buying this? Like what was like calling your name on it?" And you know, it wasn't like a super cheap transactions. We like we always sell six boxes online. I think it was like around 40 bucks including taxes and all that. Yeah, so that was kind of like the first launch where it was like, "Oh damn, a lot of people like actually care about this and like want to buy it." And then from there we actually started launching meta ads and pretty quickly found product market fit there, too, right?

Like this is kind of a white space. Like in possum you've got a bunch competition and couscous there isn't any competition at least online yet. And so found really good CPAs and we were able to kind of use that as as a proof point. Like, "Hey, we can actually be first order profitable on our website on a CPG product." Like that doesn't really happen. And so yeah, continue to build from there. Got a bunch of good reviews that, you know, kind of reiterated that product market fit as well.

I think I read or my my Claude read a story about someone giving you a one-star review, but then being converted into a maybe a lifetime user. Is that Is that Did it hallucinate or is that true?

That is true. That like honestly, I think is probably one of the biggest opportunities for founders is um so I read every single review that we get. We you know, we're at probably like five a day these days. We we just crossed like 300 reviews. A lot of them most of them like 95% of them are like five-star reviews and I still I reply to every single customer. I like thank them. I like call out specific things in like, you know, a lot of people are stoked on this new recipe that they came out with with Boostcous and I'm like, "If I've never tried that, I'm like, hey, that looked delicious.

I'm going to try that." And I do. Um and I'll follow up with them. Um but yeah, like you called out, you know, our first one-star review. I think we got after like 150 five-star reviews, we got our first one-star review. And I just immediately emailed um this person and just, you know, said, "Hey, like listen, I I hear you. Um I want I would love to like get on a call with you and just like get your feedback. I'm you know, we're a brand new business. We're a small business. Um um I'm the founder and I want to like learn from you." And yeah, ended up getting on a call with her.

Had a really, really great conversation. Um it turned out that she just wasn't cooking the product in the right way and we ended up like updating our packaging because of that as well. Took ownership of it. And then yeah, she ended up converting to a five-star review after that. We use Judge.me for reviews and um the way that they do it is like you can't edit any review, which like is the best way to do it, right? Like you shouldn't have a brand ever touching the review. But yeah, she after the call was like, "Hey, listen, like you provided such great customer service and like a human connection that like just doesn't exist anymore.

Let me know how to update my review and I'll do it right now." And you know, she ended up writing this like long essay, um converted to like a five-star review and now she like loves the product, you know, obviously shares it with her friends, word of mouth, all that.

I hear a lot of podcast guests reference KnoCommerce as just a you know, a really incredible way to get intelligence about about your customer. Um, you know, everyone's looking for different AI uh mechanisms for attribution and this and that, but I think everyone sort of recognizes that just asking your customers where and how they they discovered you is super valuable. And you probably, in your position, saw so many surveys come in, so much data. Is there anything you took from your time at No that you've either really worked hard to avoid with this brand or that you're that you're really trying to implement?

Yeah, for sure. So, um you know, like super lucky that we got to work with some of the biggest CPG brands um at No, like Oats Overnight, Gruns, IQ Bar, like Liquid I like you know, you name it. Like we've like seen the data on the back end at No and yeah, I think one of the biggest opportunities is a lot of people think of post-purchase survey as like just how did you hear about us and certainly like that's helpful. I think as you're getting started, like for us like, you know, most people are going to hear about us from like one of three channels and it doesn't really make that big of an impact on Boostcous in my business today, right?

Like I'm going to keep pouring money into Meta and I we try to diversify as well, obviously, but um the biggest opportunity is actually like learning from your customer, right? As we grow, we're going to be going into retail and like that connection point with the customer is not going to be there anymore. Like we won't be able to learn from them and so I take that opportunity to ask as many questions as we can. Things like, you know, what's important to you and why did you buy today? Like so we can use that to to surface it sooner.

More importantly, like what almost prevented you from buying today? So that we can figure out are there like CRO issues on our website? Um, are there things that we should overcome in our messaging so that people that land on our website are able to overcome that. Um, and then we also use the data to like fuel our retail growth. So like one of the most important questions that I ask on our post-purchase survey is what retail stores would you like to see Belliwell Foods in? And so now like as we're starting to grow into retail, I can actually go to like Costco, I can actually go to Whole Foods and say, "Hey, listen, in the last 30 days we had this many customers actually say that they want to buy at your store and we can drive foot traffic to your store and incremental revenue for you." In addition to that, we ask them like a bunch of other questions like, "If you were using other protein pastas, which ones and why are you switching?" So that we can like try to position ourselves against that competition even though we don't see ourselves as like a pasta competitor.

A ton of different insights from from these brands that like we were luckily able to learn from.

I'm so interested, too, the fact that you know, you you're one of the first brands to market that appears to have like really leveraged AI in all these ways to collapse any boundaries or or or difficulties you might have. Can you speak to that a little bit? Was it Was there anything that you found that you I guess maybe what was the hardest thing that you had to do that you didn't use AI for? What was the AI best for in in using this? And how much do you think it kind of collapsed the the the time to to build this?

Yeah, I've said this publicly, like I'll say it again, like I think right now is the best time in history to be building a brand. There's essentially two sides to this business. Um there is the online D2C side that like can very quickly move with AI. And then there's the retail side where like there is still a ton of human connection, right? You need to go like connect with a buyer to be able to do that, but you can find a lot of efficiencies in both sides, specifically on the D2C side. You know, from the beginning we we used AI to to build this entire business.

It's just me and a co-founder to this day. The way that I think about it is like what like especially as we were getting started, like what are like things that I don't like doing that I would hire an EA for? And so we leverage a lot of AI for that. Like, you know, as an example with like product seeding, you know, if you've ever like logged into Shopify or like done any product seeding, like you have to ask like an influencer for their email and their phone number and their address go put it into Shopify, create a draft order, convert it.

Like things like that we can just do like in a fraction of the time with AI and, you know, now there's all these connectors and it's just gotten so much better. A lot of like imagery like you we can, you know, create like ads, static ads with with AI. A lot Most of the photos on our website are with AI. But like the one thing I will say is that like you can kind of like fall off the rails and end up using too much AI like where there you like you end up losing human connection, right?

And And at the end of the day like that is what a brand is, right? Like people want to buy from someone that they can relate to. And so things like calling our customers, like that like you can't you can't replicate with AI. But you can have more time on your plate because you can take other things off. Um so, yeah, it's kind of a balance and and you know, I think maybe we swung the pendulum a little too far at first and now we're kind of finding our

our middle ground.

The fact that you're able to get this product, you know, first-order profitable when probably everyone buying it has never bought couscous or thought to buy couscous online through a Meta ad. You know what I mean? So, you're you're converting people to the to the idea, and you're converting them all in one session, which is amazing. But, obviously, long-term retail is likely going to be the lion's share of this brand as it grows. Talk to me about how you approach retail in the beginning, and what it's looking like now, I guess.

Yeah, and yeah, I think you're you're totally right. Like, I personally probably would not buy couscous online. So, like, the fact that almost 10,000 orders have like come in, and you know, we we've hit that is like incredible. Retail, at the end of the day, like, couscous is a pantry staple. You Usually, you would go buy it because like you looked up a recipe that has couscous in it, you go buy it, and you make it. Um, what we're doing is we're educating a lot of people online, and we're kind of positioning as like kind of like a rice replacement, right?

Like, you have rice in your pantry, you most of the time are going to cook it, and um, you know, end up putting like some sort of stir-fry on top of it. You can now just use Boostcous um, instead of that and get your protein and fiber. Um, and so, with retail, when we first started, we kind of knew that like we needed to get proof and get numbers before we got into retail. And so it was mostly just inbound small like natural stores. We're in like 20 to 30 stores and all of them see really good velocities, but it's all been inbound and and and not much effort there.

The back half of this year we definitely want to make more effort into going into retail. And man, that's like an entire beast. Like you know, D2C is like relatively easy to figure out. Like you can like learn a ton from online resources. Retail is just kind of this like antiquated like old school industry that like I'm learning every single day. There's brokers, there's distributors, there's trade shows. And so yeah, we're just trying to put ourselves in the right place. Price ourselves really competitively and we're going to Summer Fancy Foods next week in New York. We're going to like a UNFI show, which is one of the bigger distributors.

You know, we are talking to a bunch of other CPG brands that have success. That's one of my favorite parts of like this industry is like everyone is a friend. Like in software everyone can pivot in one second and become an enemy. Here everyone's very helpful. So we're just like trying to learn that way. And yeah, we we you know, we just got into Gelson's in California. So we'll be launching in like 42 stores there. We're in talks with Hy-Vee in the Midwest. And hopefully like by the end of this year we'll be in a ton more retailers. That's kind of the goal.

And retailers are are humans, too. So they it is this sort of opaque system, but if you're if you feel like an idea whose time has come to customers, there's a strong chance you'll feel that same way to retail buyers. You also referenced leveraging what you're able to do with D2C. I'm sure there's a lot of CPG founders out there who aren't as digitally native as you. So being able to just show that track record as you were saying before of like you know, here's where what we're selling in you know, in your area or whatever. I'm probably super valuable. Are there other ways that you've been leveraging your success on D2C to tell a really good retail story?

Yeah, so like speaking of AI too, like we have like 300 reviews, we have all this post-purchase survey data that a lot of that is like open text, like why did you buy, things like that. Like I fed all of that into AI and we're able to kind of like distill it down and create like sell sheets that we we use with retailers, PowerPoints using Claude design. All that data is fed into these sales materials that we can bring into the retailers.

And then yeah, at the end of the day it's just like telling a story, right? So like when you're talking to that retail buyer, when you're talking to like that distributor, it's telling a story of like why did you start this brand and why should people care? And show the numbers. At the end of the day they want to see like really good margins for themselves and that people are going to come into their store. That's really what we're trying to show. And so, yeah, just the real story is like, hey, we are first serve

order pot for a while online and this is not a product that people should be buying online. And just ending it there and like kind of opening the conversation.

Yeah, it kind of speaks for itself.

Exactly.

Where are we in the adding protein to non-protein sort of life cycle? Like cuz it's like I think being on a D2C Twitter as much as I am, you you hear people, you know, rolling their eyes about, oh, it's now fiber, oh, it's protein, oh, it's creatine or whatever. But it's still probably very early in the in the grand scheme outside of the bubble of D2C Twitter.

Yeah, D2C Twitter is such a bubble, man. Like you you hang out on there and then you don't go outside for a little bit, you can go down some some weird rabbit holes. But when we first launched it, like we went viral all on Twitter, like a a New York Times writer like found a tweet and like retweeted it, it got like 250,000 impressions. He was just kind of like rolling his eyes at like the protein mo- movement and um like how are people going to poop with like all of this protein kind of thing even though we have a ton of of fiber.

Um I think the the protein market it's a trend that this going to continue to grow. I do think fiber, specifically soluble fiber, is going to be a rising trend. We, you know, purposely try to call out both those things so we can ride the wave on both. I think the important distinction is like naturally deriving, right? Like I see all sorts of protein like things coming out like up you know, there's protein soda now. Um like I recently saw protein sprinkles and it's like do you really need protein in your sprinkles? Like you know, is that like really uh like no shade on whoever is starting that that like business but like as a as a trend like yeah, like as a trend like you you know, you like I think that is like too fringe but like I do think adding naturally derived protein to the foods that you're already eating is going to continue to grow and that's like one of the top questions we get asked is like how do you add protein to Boostcous?

And again, it's all like natural and I think that hits the mark.

I think you've mentioned publicly that you don't see this as your last product and I you may not be a one SKU couscous company forever. How do you see the jobs to be done of the company that you want to build?

So yeah, the the parent company's called Boost Foods LLC. Our first product is Boostcous. We kind of see it as a like a Trojan horse into the market, right? Like that aisle is has like no innovation and like if our box, which has like good branding and good call outs and is better for you, like sits next to anything on that shelf, you are going to pick it up and buy it. Like I said, there's two types of couscous, there's Israeli and Moroccan. Um we actually are about to come out with a Moroccan version. Um we feel like we can come out with some flavors around that as well and get even more competitive to like some of the the current products that are out there.

The couscous market's a 1.2 billion dollar GMB. It's like pretty big. We think like it's about 500 million in the US. You know, we think that we can continue to lean in on our USPs, right? Like, convenience is something that we want to keep leaning in on and we have some really good product innovation there. People want to cook, but they're going to get lazier and lazier. And I think if we can position it as the fastest way to cook, you know, your carb side that's actually healthy, I think we can we can win there. But yeah, we you know, we feel like we have a long way to go and a lot of runway on the couscous side. And then from there, we'd love to go into some other boosted foods.

Talk to me about the package design. It's it it really is stark. I just just pulled it up and I'm looking at the the bright blue design. Talk to me about how you thought about this product design to to disrupt the the aisle you're talking about.

Honestly, like it's pretty easy. Like you could go pull up Near East. That's like one of our main competitors. Like, you you know, if you've if you're like sitting at home and you've bought couscous, you've probably bought Near East and you didn't even know you bought Near East, you know? From the get-go, like what you know, we're not competing against much here. So, like anything was going to be better than nothing. The blue color is kind of like the Mediterranean like cuisine like Greek, Israel. Like that's like kind of where the blue comes from. We wanted to keep it like fun and light.

We wanted to be able to attract the mom from Kansas and the workout bro in New York City or the Pilates chick in LA and kind of be able to like attract all of those demos. Um and so yeah, we have like our different characters. This this hat is actually like kind of like a all of our different characters in like the Grateful Dead Dancing Bear format. Um but yeah, that's like one of our characters is on that box right now. And And then yeah, we wanted to as soon as you pick it up, we wanted you to like know what it is.

Boostcous in in itself, that name like really yields to like what we are. But then also have like the protein packed couscous. And then the major callout is the protein fiber on the front. What happened at Expo West?

So, all these trade shows are like so expensive and you know, we're we're trying to keep this like pretty lean. We're bootstrapped like I said. Um eventually like actually I just signed a contract and we're we're like actually paying for our table for next year at Expo West in March. Um so it's kind of like a full circle moment, but yeah, I've got a podcast of of my own as well. Haven't recorded too much of it, but we kind of interview a bunch of uh D2C founders to to learn how they're using data to drive profitable growth and yeah, ended up being able to like use that podcast to like finagle my way into a ticket and saved, you know, it's like just getting a ticket without like a booth is like $2,500.

So, saved a ton of money there and we were able to walk the floor. I think that the two things that came away is like one we we met a ton of other brands that like are like friends now that we can like learn from and two, we met a bunch of buyers and actually the Gelson's store that I was talking about with 42 stores in California. That came from walking the floor at Expo.

Podcast once again, it's the such a good foot in the door, right? People don't always want to chat with you, but if you can give them a platform, here they are.

Honestly like one of my best friends in in real life, not just like work life, Connor Rowland from Hex Clad came from just like meeting him on Twitter, inviting him on the podcast like three years ago and now he's like he's going to come stay at my house in two weeks and like anytime I'm in Denver, I hit him up. He's he's the man. Shout out Connor. He's got his own podcast, too. Marketing Operators.

I think we should do a hot swap. I'll send you one of our D2C uh felt ones for one of if you if you've got a Boostcous one cuz I think that's pretty dope.

I love that.

Um I you mentioned your podcast. I had a funny I like the name Don't VLOOKUP, which is is that a reference to the don't don't look up Leo DiCaprio global warming movie?

Yeah, that's that's exactly right. Um especially while I was at No was a a great way to like network into brands and I don't know, I think when you're like in software, it's like everyone just assumes that you're trying to sell them something and like dude, the number of like now that I'm on the brand side, like I totally empathize with the brand owners. Like I probably have to hit the spam button like 50 times a day. It's insane. I like should honestly just build like a a cloudy agent to like help me with that. But yeah, it was a great way to like network into people and once you know, once you get the ball rolling, you get like a a few credible names on there.

Like people are like, oh, this person like means business and yeah, same like, you know, when you reached out, I was like, oh yeah, I've totally seen you guys everywhere. Like I'm so happy to come on.

Give a shout out for AdidaSki, too. DT Ski, cuz I think it's such a cool event. I'm I hope to make it one year.

Yeah, AdidaSki is an event that we do every year in Aspen, where I live. We fly out about 35 of the biggest e-commerce brands, leaning more and more on CPG, obviously with with my like self-interest, but um yeah, we fly them out and it's kind of like the anti-conference, right? Like when you're in D2C, like there is uh like these conferences in Vegas and like wherever where you like show up, there's thousands of people. You're kind of getting sold the entire time and like I think everyone's worst nightmare is like being stuck in the corner of a dinner table where like a SaaS sales guy is like trying to shove something down your throat and you have no out.

And so yeah, like this is 35 brands, all the best operators. I personally vet every single one. We have like 500 people apply and I you know, dwindle it down to to the top. And we just, you know, we get in a room for the first 2 hours every day and kind of have this like vulnerable like almost therapy style, like these are my problems, here's like how other people would solve them. All off the record, no recording and kind of sign an NDA, so no one like tries to like share any of that. It's like a very trusting room.

And then for the rest of the day, it's like, you know, more more unstructured. Like, we go skiing, we do après, we go have dinner. But, the entire idea is like, you have some of the smartest people in the world like sharing their problems, and that conversation continues throughout the entire day. And, yeah, it's been super super fun. Yeah, if you're interested, dtsski.com, dtsski.com. I think the application should still be on there, and yeah, we'd love to have more people out there.

We're sort of interesting position to have jumped from SaaS onto the vendor side. I feel like Shopify started the trend of like empowering merchants. Like that with you know, arm the rebels, they said. And, I feel like we're now in this era where more and more individuals and individual contributors and merchants are even more empowered with these with these skills. Maybe give some closing advice to anyone in the audience who is maybe sitting on a project, but hasn't got it into action yet.

Yeah, and also, if there's like any other SaaS founders out there that have jumped into the D2C side, like I want to connect with you. I feel like there are so many people doing it the other way, where they like started a a brand and saw a need for software and pivot like, you know, Triple Whale's a good example of that, Save by So on and so forth. So, yeah, if you if you're that person, reach out. But, yeah, D2C and and just like brand side is is just so fun. Like, you you're essentially coming out with an idea and a product that like people end up actually using in their day-to-day life.

And, at the very minimum, it's like easier to explain to people, you know, like my mom knows what I do now. Like, she eats Boostcous. She did not know what I did when you know, I was doing all the software stuff like KnoCommerce, whatever. So, like, you know, I think it's just so so fulfilling to be able to do that. Like, seeing all the reviews, seeing how people like actually use your product. So, take the leap, but you don't have to like quit your job and and just go all in. Like, even if you just spin up a website and try to start with static ads, you don't need to like start with video.

That's what we did. Like, once you find product market fit and find messaging that works, obviously double down and like create videos and all of that, but like start small and and don't overthink it. I'm like you know, kind of fall into that trap too of like entrepreneurship where you like to want to make it perfect and like if it's not perfect, you think people won't buy it. I think just get something out there, iterate, move quickly, fail fast, fail forward and it's a really fun journey.

Bar, thanks for coming on, man. This is super fun. You got to find Bar on uh on LinkedIn. Follow his journey with Boostcous. And the domain is is it just boostcous.com if people want to give it a try?

Yeah, just boostcous.com. Um yeah, if you Google Boostcous, you should find it as well. Yeah, and hopefully come to a store near you soon. But yeah, we want more and more people to try it, so if you're hearing this and you haven't, please do.

It's a pretty good tagline uh just on the site there. Finally, a carb that pulls its weight.

Yeah, dude, that was uh so I I felt That's clever. I built a copywriting agent and fed it to like really good copywriting books um that like I've always like looked up to, Ogilvy and another one that like I've always like read and bought the PDF, fed it um and then uh on top of that fed all of our post-purchase survey data and review data and asked it to come up with a tagline. And so, that's uh that's not my doing necessarily, but um I appreciate it.

Nice, man. Great to meet you and uh let's stay in touch.

Take care, Eric.

Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you're not a subscriber to our newsletter, you can do that right now at directtoconsumer, all one word, dot co. I'm Eric Dick, and this has been the DTC Podcast. We'll see you next time.