#85 First Hire Series: Culture with Jennifer Yepez-Blundell (+ Tiny Sprouts)

Today is our seventh episode in the "First Hire" series where we’ve so far covered making first hires in marketing, finance, operations, and retail & foodservice sales, and we’ve talked with one of our community brands, Sweet Nothings, about making their first few hires. Culture comes up some in those conversations, but I wanted to dedicate an entire episode to culture. We’re joined today by expert Jennifer Yepez-Blundell, owner of Merida Consulting, and our former Startup CPG Podcast host, to guide us in this conversation, and I’m so excited to share Jennifer’s wisdom with you and have her on the other side of the mic. When I was the first marketing and operations hire at a CPG startup brand, I had big dreams about building a culture different than those I had experienced in the corporate world. Over the next 2 years and growing to 30 employees, I wish I could have had someone like Jennifer guide that startup from the beginning. Within our community of emerging brands are tomorrow’s next household brand names. Can you imagine if the Frito Lay’s and Coca-Cola’s of the world had these conversations from day one? There’s an incredible opportunity to make change through building not only a mission-driven product, but also through the mission-driven team of humans behind those products. Listen in as Jennifer shares about: - How to define culture and key terms - Why culture is important and how the conversations around workplace culture have shifted - Biggest mistakes founders make - The process of developing values and how an outside expert can help - How culture expands beyond your team members to your customers and external partners - And more! And stay tuned at the end for a special mini interview with Startup CPG Shelfie Award winner, Tiny Sprouts (at 34:30). After recording this interview at the end of last year, I got to meet Tina and Kim in person at Expo West and try the product, which was amazing. And they had their Shelfie Award proudly displayed at their booth.