MADELINE HAYDON OF NUTPODS
“Through that experience, I realized that I really gravitated towards wanting to help people. And so in another way, in another iteration, nutpods is an extension of that, where I'm helping people lead a healthier life and giving them better options.” — Madeline Haydon
Madeline Haydon is the Founder & CEO of nutpods, the best-selling non-dairy creamer brand, and an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Madeline developed nutpods based on a personal need: a rich and creamy, dairy-free coffee creamer without artificial ingredients and with 0g of sugar. nutpods has since grown to the #3 brand in the exploding plant-based, non-dairy creamer category, by cultivating and leveraging a passionate consumer following. Initially launched as a Kickstarter project, nutpods is now the #1 selling brand on Amazon and one of the fastest growing brands of refrigerated plant-based creamers in national retailers. The brand’s success is driven in part by Madeline’s unconventional route to market: starting with direct to consumer prior to expanding into traditional grocery.
nutpods selection as Amazon’s “Small Business of the Year”, recently ranking #13 on the Inc 5000 list of Fastest Growing Companies, and being one of Ernst & Young’s “Entrepreneur of the Year – PNW Region” has made Madeline a popular speaker at the Specialty Food Association Conferences, Natural Products Expo West, Hirshberg Entrepreneurship Institute, and others. Her approach to seeding brands and nutpods’ success has been covered in publications including Forbes, Inc., BevNet, Seattle Business, Food Navigator, and One Green Planet and multiple podcasts. Madeline holds a BS from the University of Washington and an MBA from Seattle University.
You spent the first 14 years of your career in the medical industry – what, from that professional experience, inspired you to create nutpods?
When I look back on my career, I have always gravitated towards industries where I was helping people. Even before the blood center— where I spent about five years hosting community drives and making sure our hospitals had adequate blood supplies for our patients— I was also on the inside sales team working on implementing public access defibrillation. When people have a sudden cardiac arrest, CPR doesn't help them get out of cardiac arrest. They need access to a defibrillator. At the time I was working there, defibrillators weren’t widely available in airports, stadiums, hospitals, and universities. We worked to get them there and available to the public. Through that experience, I realized that I really gravitated towards wanting to help people. And so in another way, in another iteration, nutpods is an extension of that, where I'm helping people lead a healthier life and giving them better options.
Ultimately, I think it's about discovery, knowing what you want to do, and then finding jobs and companies and positions that allow you to do that, regardless of the industry or the position.
What skills are vital to starting a business, particularly in the food & beverage industry?
In general, when you're starting a business you need to have curiosity and you need to understand how things work in your industry. How are things made, how are things distributed and sold? Being curious also gets you in front of the people that have the answers, as you will surely not know all the answers. I also think being able to network is an important skill, to be able to build a spiderweb of individuals. But really, how you build a business is with a network of individuals that will lend their talents and their investment dollars and their knowledge. I also think it's so important to be persuasive, and I believe that is an underrated skill. It allows you to persuade potential advisory board members, potential investors, potential employees that you want to recruit as well as early consultants—you will need to be able to tell your brand’s story and convey your vision.
In food and beverage specifically, I would say being able to really embrace what you don't know is vital because food processing is something you just don't know as a layperson. It's not something you can go to school for. There's no operations course that you can go to for food and beverage. And so it's really about being able to embrace what you don't know, ask the questions, raise your hand, and really be curious and get those questions answered.
Do you have any advice for networking?
I think one way is going to industry events and following up with the speakers and organizations that put on the trade show. Get to know the groups that are behind the scenes, organizing the events. They are well connected and can help make introductions for you. Put yourself in a position to be in the same room as those speakers and be able to introduce yourself, say a little bit about what you're looking to do, and then just ask if you could follow up with them. For the most part, they're there to help and support new and fellow entrepreneurs. They may not be like your advisory board member right off the bat, and by the way, you don’t want to ask them before you get to know them and if they really are a fit for you, but more often than not, they are happy to answer some of your questions.
Were there any specific challenges that came with being a female founder in general and, more specifically, in the food & beverages industry?
It's very hard to bootstrap a business all the way to a scale level. Unfortunately, this means that raising money is a reality for a lot of female founders. There is some progress being made in the investment community side to improving access to capital for underrepresented founders but for now, only four percent of venture capital dollars go towards female-founded businesses and only two percent of private equity goes towards female-founded businesses. We are private equity backed and are among those two percent of private equity, but it takes a lot of overcoming bias; some unconscious, some not. And if the investment world is not where you come from, there's not a Rolodex or lists of private equity or venture capital groups that invest in your space or invest in your scale of business. It’s really word of mouth and you have to network for those connections. It was really tough because when I was raising money; I was also not only a female founder, but also a person of color. I was outside of Silicon Valley and I had never been a CEO before. In some ways, it was very hard to bank on me. This is why most companies, including ours, take the traditional route of doing a family and friends financing round. But we also did a Kickstarter campaign and we had other benefits like proof of concept, SEO benefits and non-dilutive funds for our company. You will find different ways to problem-solve to get your business off the ground and that's part of the journey.
What does a typical workday look like for you?
I get asked this a lot and I feel like what people want to hear is, well, I start off with yoga, meditation, and so on. But to be honest with you, I have two young daughters and I'm a wife and I'm a mother and I own a dog, too. And so life is just busy. So a typical day for me is that I wake up around 5:00 AM. I check emails. I am in touch with some people on early phone calls on the East Coast. I catch up on the news and find out what's going on in the world. Then I go try to get a workout in as part of my stress management routine. I’ll walk the dog, get my kids off to school and drop them off.
I normally start my workday around 8:30 AM and end at 5:30 or 6 PM and go home and be with my family. I do think it's important for women as part of their self-care when we are building our careers, is to make sure that we have the time for friendships because we really need to have that social network of being able to have people that we can talk to and people that you can relate to. Having friends, both on a personal level as well as a professional level is really part of my fabric and it allows me to be a little bit centered.
They encourage me but they also keep me accountable and I need that too. To have someone say “Hey, you need to take time for your health” so don’t feel guilty about your self-care. When you have young children and a marriage you’re trying to juggle as well, it’s important to have that support network.
What advice do you have for college-aged women interested in entrepreneurship?
Take as many courses as you can that include actual case studies. I took an entrepreneurship course during my MBA. They asked “how many of you want to own a business one day” at the beginning of class and everyone raised their hands. And at the end of class, he asked the same question, “How many of you still want to own your own business?”. I would say a third of the people raised their hands. Two-thirds did not. And that's because we had learned over the semester about the amount of personal risk you take, not just reputational risk, but real financial risk. You may find yourself like me, learning fast about where I’m liable and what I’m personally guaranteeing financially.
If your college or university has speakers, attend those for knowledge as well as networking. I remember at my university, Howard Schultz came as a speaker. Having access to speakers who share with you about how they built their business and what they would do differently is immensely helpful. It's really great because it allows you to have some insight on their journey with the benefit of hindsight. And of course, being able to interact with Howard Schultz afterward is really special too. Finding opportunities on campus where you can interact with speakers and learn from them is wonderful. I also think seeking out Alumni is another effective avenue as well for building your network.
Quick Take One: What are some books, podcasts, newsletters, or blogs that you’ve enjoyed and would recommend to our readers?
I really enjoy podcasts like “How I Built This” or “Masters of Scale,” because they cover different parts of how you can succeed in business and how you can think about building your own business.
I also think it's important to just read books that are not necessarily business-related. You have to exercise all parts of your brain and sometimes just the creative ones— the ones that make you laugh or make you curious. And so I am an advocate as an ex-English major undergrad to be able to give those fiction books a chance. Glennon Doyle’s Untamed is a great one. I love Tipping Point. It balances my experience as a consumer and also gives me some tangible advice as a business owner.
Quick Take Two: Who is a woman you look up to?
I love this question and I'm going to go with someone who actually is not in business at all and it's Jane Goodall. I love Jane because I think she was very unconventional for her time. She was trailblazing, she was brave, and absolutely genuinely, herself.
She is not just a break-down doors type of person. She's soft-spoken. She's incredibly intelligent, she's gentle, and yet she's very convicted and passionate about what she's doing. She also emulates a lot of the qualities that I strive to be where you can be very good at what you're doing and intelligent, but it's also great to be kind, open-minded, and humble. To be confident in what you know, but also leave room for the fact that you're still learning and there are still possibilities of things that are different from your perspective, and I think Jane does a great job of that.
Quick Take Three: I know nutpods is your baby, but if you had to choose one, what would be your go-to nutpods product?
I love all my babies! My go-to is the original because the original is like a plain half and half. It's very versatile. A lot of people don't realize that you can bake and cook with nutpods. And so when you take our original, which is like a plain half and half, you can make a beautiful mushroom truffle risotto or you can make an awesome bourbon whiskey bread pudding with it. You can make amazing sweet and savory recipes.
For Thanksgiving, I’ve got it all covered. I've got nutpods in the mashed potatoes instead of milk. I've got it in the green bean casserole instead of the cream of mushroom soup. You know, I've got it in place of the evaporated milk for the pumpkin pie. And so it's very versatile, and for that reason, I have to go with my original.