Fabian Geyrhalter:
Welcome to the show, Kathryn.

Kathryn Shah:
Thanks for having me.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Oh, it’s so great to have you on, especially since you have been working as a fellow brand strategy consultant prior to diving into your startup, and we always love that here at Hitting the Mark since a lot of listeners are brand strategists themselves, so that’s fantastic. You are part two of another serendipitous series where I have two highly accomplished female founders of innovative health food brands on the show back to back as we just had Jeni of Jeni’s ice cream on the latest episode who recently launched her line of fiber bars under the Floura brand moniker, the birth of your brand Spring and Mulberry is a surprising and deeply personal story. There was a trip to Dubai involved and on the flip side there was a cancer diagnosis and somehow the two resulted in a line of date-sweetened chocolate bars. Take us back to those early days and how along that journey, the idea for your brand came about.

Kathryn Shah:
So Spring and Mulberry is all about exploring a world of sweet beyond sugar, and we do that through our first product, which is date-sweetened chocolate bars topped with fruits, florals, nuts and spices. So how did we come to launch this type of product on the market? Well, it did indeed start with a trip to Dubai way back in 2012. I stopped in Dubai on the way to visit my husband’s family in India, and there I was handed a date and I really wasn’t interested in eating it in America. Dates are put in the back bin of natural grocery stores dimly lit and left a shrivel up up and generally they wouldn’t win in a beauty award in the fruit category. They’re not the most attractive. But I took a bite of this date and it was extraordinary. It was like unlike anything I had tasted.

It was jammy and caramelly and sweet and rich and it was kind of awoken me to the pleasure of whole foods. And in the Middle East and in India, often dried fruits and fresh fruits like mangoes are presented in beautiful gift boxes. They’re given to family and friends as hostess gifts. And I was really struck by how we in America package up sugar and dye as a celebratory item and then we leave fruits and nuts to kind of shrive shrivel in the bulk bins. And that was an aha moment for me about how perspective and culture can change how you think about sweetness. Super

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Interesting. Yeah.

Kathryn Shah:
Yeah. Fast forward a few years, I unfortunately was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer in my early thirties and ended up leaving my career in marketing and went through 16 weeks chemotherapy, multiple surgeries, radiation, and it was the worst time in my life when all of my friends were building their careers and starting their families. I was sitting in the hospital getting chemo and my husband was really, he took it upon himself to really try to cure me through natural remedies that could compliment traditional western treatment. And what we learned in the process is that sugar is really linked to every single major disease we face as Americans. It’s hidden in all of our foods and that eliminating refined sugar and instead eating antioxidant packed vegetables, fruits, nuts, cacao, those types of foods can not only improve the medical outcome of chemotherapy, they improve your longevity over time.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Amazing.

Kathryn Shah:
Those two experiences are really what led to me exploring sweetness beyond sugar and ultimately founding our brands Spring and Mulberry.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
And from that moment on where you had this revelation that this is something that you would want to actually do and put your whole energy towards, how long did it take from idea to actually launch to have the bar anywhere to sell, not even in a shop, but to have it done?

Kathryn Shah:
Yeah, I finished chemo, I finished treatment in the spring of 2019. I started ideating this while consulting for other brands and then CO hit and I just got to work on this product. We did a very small beta test in 2021 just with our local market, and then we launched nationally in March of 2022. So about two years.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Amazing. And fast forward to today, and you are in Whole Foods and mother’s markets and God knows where, I mean everywhere. I just looked at where can I find a bar that’s close to me and it had 50 options on your website. I’m like, oh, you’re everywhere. That’s good. Well, you’re in Southern California, so that makes it easy. No, exactly. I mean Los Angeles is most probably one of your two or three hotbeds for Salesforce.

Kathryn Shah:
100%

Fabian Geyrhalter:
For sure. So you launched in March ’22, which is very recent, and back then you only used two ingredients. So there was cacao and then there were dates, and then you topped it with fruits, florals, nuts, spices. Did this formula endure three years later?

Kathryn Shah:
Yes, we have the same formula today. Our chocolate is a 72% dark. It is made only with organic cocoa beans and organic dates. And then we now have two lines. So we have our original line, which we call our embellished line, where we use toppings like hand topped fruits, florals, nuts and spices to create the flavors. And then we have a new line which we launched last September that are all infused with organic essential oils and that is an untapped line, which we call our essence line.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
How cool. I didn’t know about the essential oils. That’s super interesting. And for anyone listening to this and not quite being able to draw yourself a picture of how these bars look, they look gorgeous. I mean, I’m not even talking about the packaging, which is next level beautiful, but the actual bars themselves with the toppings on top, it is an experience for all the senses. So I would love for you to go online, take a quick, do a picture search or go to the website and check it out. I also love how your products are sold with a very gift and design centered approach on your side. So it’s almost like a bundle of books, a few bars in a hard bound case, you have the scarf tie, gift wraps, you do complimentary handwritten notes. It’s so interesting just based on your three minute intro of how you talked about how products are being seen and packaged and gifted in India with so much care and love, I’m sure that that inspired this, but how important is it to your brand, that side of the business where how you represent the product visually and maybe even in a gift manner?

Kathryn Shah:
It’s really interesting. We actually started with the idea of being a new version of a Godiva, kind of like what Flamingo estate is doing today so beautifully. But in that year, 2021 when we did a small beta test with friends and family and in our local market of Raleigh, North Carolina, people said, well, a tin of bark is beautiful, but I actually just want a bar. I want to eat it myself. And so all of our initial consumer research said people want, they need more healthy and delicious and decadent products for themselves, and if it’s pretty enough to gift, they’ll also give it, gift it. And so we really pivoted at that time before we even came to market in the way that you see today where we went away from the guava flamingo estate model and instead really are creating a product that is for self-consumption that then can be wrapped or packaged or put in a gift set that then allows it for gifting. And I think ultimately that is a more sustainable model because how many times a year do you buy a food gift versus how many times a week are you shopping at the grocery store? And so really having a business model where, I don’t know the exact numbers for us, but let’s say 80% of our business is self-consumption and 20% is gifting. That’s a really nice balance, which creates virality and word of mouth, but it also ensures the velocity and the turn on shelf.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
That makes tons, tons of sense. And you’re going to be the only person to ever put could dive in Flamingo estate into the same category.

Kathryn Shah:
We can throw Harriet Davids in there too.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Very good. Well last very deep down in the product question, but it’s just fascinating to me. You launched Minis, did you just launch them or is that a long time ago and they’re discontinued but they’re sold out on your site, but it makes so much sense to do minis of your actual bigger bars for everyday consumption.

Kathryn Shah:
We launched Minis last year, about a year, two years into the brand. We launched Minis and they sell Gangbuster. They’re sold out on our website now. They’ll be back in about a week, but we can’t keep them in stock on our website. We actually use them as a pathway to get into juice bars and coffee chains and hotel mini bars. And so that’s why you see that we’ll have one flavor. It was really that kind of lower introductory sample size product that was meant to be basically a tool for discovery.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
It is your gateway drug, we know what we’re talking about here, just say it. And they’re so cute. I mean they’re just so cute. They’re adorable, which definitely helps, but enough of deep down in the trenches of the product. Let’s talk a little bit about your background to your startup because it is pretty amazing and we’re not even talking about you having a Harvard degree, but you worked for two brands that 99% of my listeners love, including myself. Of course you would. The vice president of Global marketing at Pantone. Yes. Pantone and the brand manager for both Clicko Champagne. What were some of those, and I totally didn’t prep you on this question, but just out of your experience, what were some of those learnings or habits that you brought from those roles with these very design forward, very brand, I mean celebrated brands? What did you bring with you to Spring in Bury and perhaps on the flip side, what did you leave behind intentionally?

Kathryn Shah:
Well, even before Cleco, I worked at Unilever and sold Ragu pasta sauce, so I really

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Did not want to mention that. See, I am protecting you here. I saw that, which is really funny.

Kathryn Shah:
It’s the gamut. Ultimately what all these companies teach you is how to run a business that is also a brand. And so when you work at a Unilever, you’re learning about how to sell a mass market product, pasta sauce that sells for a dollar at Walmart. And so you’re learning about couponing, you’re learning about flavor development, you’re learning about television ads, you’re learning about shopper marketing. And then I transitioned to Veco, which is obviously a luxury brand. We would never put ourselves on TV because we’re not trying to be for everyone. We’re trying to be for those in the know. And so there it’s much more about bringing the brand to life through events and experiences being served at the right restaurants and creating an aura around the brand through its marketing promotion. And then I moved to Pantone where I was leading global marketing, multiple departments and a big team, and there it was much more about understanding how to be the general manager of a business and how to run a team effectively and have all of the disparate parts work together to create something greater than the sum of each.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
So all of these experiences combined gives you an amazing amount of wind in your sails for your startup, I would assume.

Kathryn Shah:
Well, you hear a lot that startups are started by kids in their twenties, and I think with that you have chutzpah and naivete and maybe a clearer vision, but I would say when you’re like me and you’re a bit of an older entrepreneur, I started this when I was almost 40. I have a lot of confidence in knowing what I know because of the experiences that I’ve had.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
That makes tons of sense. And look, I started my startup to an optic what, like three years ago and I’m 50 now. So yeah, I definitely subscribed to that thinking. I think it’s a very different approach that you take most probably much more realistic, and I’m sure it’s a very different trajectory for a startup when you start with all of those life lessons, which doesn’t mean for any of the kids listening. Yeah, you should still start a startup and it’s great and more power to you keep listening to this podcast, you will learn. Okay, that’s right. When you worked with Clicko, you spearheaded partnerships with like-minded brands like Louis Vuitton and Fendi, American Express. Do you have any partnership concepts in the works or any dreams with Spring and Melbourne? Because I would just assume that you would take a lot of that and it would drive into your new brand, some of these ideas.

Kathryn Shah:
Well, partnerships have definitely been at the center of our brand. Even when we just launched, our first collaboration was a dessert napkin collaboration with Atelier Sassier, which is an Ellie based table linen brand that’s making entertaining saucier. And we’ve done a number of different collaborations with artists, whether it’s candles or napkins or menu and placecards, all of the things that create a lifestyle around spring and Mulberry and tell our story of indulgence, maximalism, entertaining gifting, those types of things. And we will continue to do brand partnerships because it allows you to reach new audiences, share your brand in interesting ways, and it’s just fun to do. Certainly as we get bigger, the commercial partnerships become more interesting and there more opportunities come to you, whether that’s us partnering with a fashion brand or with a health and wellness brand. On our bucket list would certainly be collaborating with Goop or with Dr. Mark Hyman who both have been great supporters of us since we started.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Oh, fantastic. And it makes so much sense, and I didn’t even put one-on-one together to see that what you’re offering on your website that a lot of those more lifestyle oriented adjacents products are actually collaborations. That’s fantastic. You just hinted at a question that was definitely on my mind ever since I took a deep dive into your beautiful brand. There’s a lot of poetry in your brand or perhaps even romance is a better word. It shows in the photo shoots, it definitely comes out in the copy. So for each chocolate, for instance on your website, for my listeners here, you have a short saying about how it tastes like and how it feels like. So for instance, blood Orange tastes like radiant citrus wrapped in richness and it feels like telling stories by candlelight. The pure Dark bar tastes like chocolate as it was meant to be and feels like putting on that perfect song. Who writes the copy? Is it an internal team member? Is it one of you two co-founders that sit there late at night or do you have an agency do a lot of that work? But it’s such an important part of your brand Aura and it really, I mean it resonates and it changes the way that people perceive something that could just be seen as a bar of chocolate.

Kathryn Shah:
And it really goes back to what we stand for as a brand, what makes us different in this health food or better food space. When we came to market, we saw that almost all better for you, brands are really comparison brands to original products, like a Better For You Oreo, and so they really focus on what they take out, right? They’re sugar free, they’re dairy free, they’re gluten free, and the way that they sell their product or prove their worth is to slack a bunch of claims on the packaging to make sure people are confident in what they’re buying. We take an entirely different approach. We don’t focus at all on what we take out. We instead focus on what we bring in, which is this world of ingredients that are naturally sweet and neutral, rich and incredibly delicious. And so we want to show that we really want to through our copy, through our photography, through all of our brand touchpoints, want to invite people to discover something new and invite them to indulge in the rich riches of the earth. And so that’s where the copy comes from and how we write it is sometimes internally, sometimes with our copywriter Kira and always in partnership with Alison Aver at Letter A who has been our design partner from the start.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Very cool. I love those stories and I love when brands show that loyalty, right? And there’s something about that brand birth when you birth a brand together with a branding consultant and you stick around with them, it’s really, really nice. How was that name Spring and Mulberry born? It is obviously it is a very different name, which is very great. How was it born? How did it come together? How did these words meet?

Kathryn Shah:
Well, spring and Mulberry started to me as a very personal story. Just like so much of our brand, it really comes from a personal place. Spring and Mulberry is an intersection in Nolita, a neighborhood in New York City. I used to live in the Lower East Side, my husband lived in soho and we would meet on the corner of Spring and Mulberry for dinner when we first started dating way back in 2006. And so now we’ve been together almost 20 years and it’s really about the sweetness of our love story. That was the inspiration for the name, but also just fits so perfectly with what we’re trying to do. We are not a date sweetened brand. We’re not a better for you brand. We are a brand that is cultivating sweetness from the earth. And spring of course is the season of rebirth with flowers and fruits. Trees start to bear fruit and flowers start to bloom. And then Mulberry felt like a lovely, beautiful counterbalance to spray. Mulberry is a deep purple, rich, dark berry flavored fruit and it’s just one of my favorite fruits.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
My mind is just a little bit blown right now when I said, how did spring and how did the two words meet? And then you’re like, well, it was actually us who met where the two words meet. It’s great and it’s all about dates and it was a date. That’s really funny. And the coincidence that Mulberry is a plant and a flavor, even one that you use in one of your bars, right? I mean it’s

Kathryn Shah:
Pretty

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Funny. That’s cool.

Kathryn Shah:
We have to have a bar with Mulberry in it. We paired it with fennel because it’s time to explore a world of sweet beyond sugar. Why not try fennel, mulberry and chocolate?

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Very cool. Very cool. Did you ever along that journey of product testing and bringing out new products and thinking about the design language and how you go to market and given your corporate marketing background where a lot of it is about consumer focus groups and data and with this product, with this startup, with your brand, do you sometimes go against what you hear or what you see in the market and you just do a gutsy move? That’s mainly based on instinct,

Kathryn Shah:
Especially at Unilever. I certainly had a few campaigns that were incredible breakthrough worthy campaigns that were killed because they didn’t meet focus group requirements and metrics. Interesting. And so I think I definitely took away from that. I kind of believe Henry Ford’s articulation of it is if I ask consumers what they want, they’ll ask for a faster course. I think now that I’ve started Spring and Mulberry, and we do do consumer research, we often do a lot of consumer research when we already have an idea about something and we do consumer research to really understand who’s buying our product and why they like it. We also hear from people what do they want next. Our consumers are very active and write us all the time for flavor suggestions. So we take all of that into account. I think where I’ve pushed back the most is with grocery store buyers who really want us to put all the, who want us to put all the claims on the front of the pack. And so I just show them what that would look like versus our packaging today and it looks clunky

Fabian Geyrhalter:
And you hope they have taste, you hope they are design trained, there’s no white space and they’re like, it’s not white, it’s blue. I don’t understand.

Kathryn Shah:
That’s right. And so I think I push back more on the buyers who want us to do what everyone else is doing and the whole point is to do something different.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Super interesting and difficult, right? Because I mean you need them more than they need you. Very cool. Very interesting. What was that talking about getting on shelf? What was the big moment where, I mean we never talked about how you actually launched the product, but between launching the product, which I’m sure was in a modest manner in the beginning to actually feeling like, you know what this is actually, I see this now turning into the brand that I envisioned from day one. Was there specific piece of press you received? Was there a specific piece of consumer feedback that you received or getting on a certain shelf and a certain brand? Was there a certain moment that you remember? Of course you remember because it’s only a couple of years now, but by the way, you look back and you’re like, this was it. This was the moment where I turned to my friend or my co-founder or my husband and I said, you know what? I think this is going to be big.

Kathryn Shah:
I’d say there are two moments if it’s okay to share two. Of course. The first one, our PR team successfully placed us in Bon Appetit in our first year in business the fall after we launched. And Bon Appetit in their publication on our Mango Chili bar said we were their favorite fancy chocolate bar on the market. And that was really a moment for us
Because it was validation that we were winning on taste and not just health for Appetit, which is the connoisseur of flavor and trends and goman, what is Gorman versus and not really caring at all about the health, not in a bad way, they’re just not a health based magazine. Their foodie magazine. For them to say that our chocolate was their favorite on the market said that it proved to us that people were going to maybe come to us for the date sweetened or better for you, but they were likely going to stay because of how delicious it was and how unique and interesting the flavors were. And that made us feel like we were really on something.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
It’s everything you needed to hear, right? I mean, that was the best possible outcome that someone says that right about anything healthy, that’s what you want them to say.

Kathryn Shah:
Exactly.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Amazing. And the second one,

Kathryn Shah:
The second moment is just so many things in life are serendipitous. And so the second one was meeting our head of sales Will, his wife owned a small boutique in Seattle that carried our chocolate. The way we went to market in our first year was to dial for dollars and call a thousand gift stores around the country. And we ended up getting our first three or 400 accounts that way and hers was one of ’em. And after selling our chocolate for maybe a year, she dmd me one day on Instagram and said, Hey, are you looking to get into grocery? And I didn’t know how to respond because I didn’t want her to stop selling our chocolate just because we had aspirations for bigger retailers. But I took the chance and I said yes. And she said, well, my husband will just left Whole Foods. He was a buyer there for 26 years and he’s now consulting for small brands looking to break into Whole Foods. Would you be interested in talking to him? And so that one message changed the trajectory of our business and eight months later we were on shelf at 150 Whole Foods stores across three regions.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Isn’t that amazing? And it’s that serendipity that can change everything. I had lunch with a friend who I haven’t seen in 10 plus years, and I just felt like it’s good to see him again. And we sat down and I told him about my record storage company and he’s like, you got to talk to my friend. He just sold his business for a lot of money and he’s an trained engineer and he likes to invest in companies and he’s a record collector and you should talk. And I’m like, wait, what? He’s all of that. And sure enough, we’re knock on wood this week, going to close off first round and have a strategic advisor who can completely change the business. But it’s the same serendipity where you’re just like something draws you to something and then it happens. It’s pretty amazing. On the flip side of the positive and the fun brands, brands navigate in organic manners. Some things work, some things don’t work. You pivot, things change. In that short journey of your brand, was there any feel or any hiccup or something that happened where you feel like, you know what, I feel okay sharing that because other people can learn from it or maybe it was just absolutely hilarious as sometimes is the case?

Kathryn Shah:
Well, honestly, if we had a one gen brand fail, I don’t know if we’d still be standing here talking to you today, that’s how well little startups can be, but really startups are, it’s just a constant cycle of learning and tweaking and adapting while trying to maintain your true north. But we got really, really lucky. One year, I think it was our first or second holiday season, and we had just produced, it was September and we had just produced all of our holiday inventory and at this point we had no cash. I mean we tied up everything into this chocolate and Hurricane Ian, I think western Florida and that’s where our first chocolate manufacturer was located. And they lost power for days. Trucks couldn’t get in or out. We had no idea if our entire holiday inventory was lost in a flood or melting in a powerless warehouse. But by some miracle it survived. But that moment definitely taught us two things. First, never produce chocolate in Florida, the hottest state in the country, and two, always have a backup plan.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
I love that. Especially number one, it’s like, all right, Florida, you’ve been playing too many numbers on us lately. I think it’s time to move. I

Kathryn Shah:
Mean, Minnesota is where it’s at. That place is over 80 for maybe a month a year.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Yeah, I love that. Oh my God, that’s amazing. The first, well, the first months of me starting my little startup, a friend of mine said, you should write a book about it. And I kind of like whatever. And then two weeks later, I really should. And so ever since, I don’t know, month three or four of starting this crazy thing, every week I write a couple of bullet points. Some of them are more sentences. I think I’m 150 pages in. And I think out of the 150 pages almost probably 120 of crazy stuff that goes down, it’s like things where you’re like, wait, really? That just happened? And it’s like your answer, can you tell me one thing that happened? And it is like, no, I can tell you 50 things that happened. That’s just a life of entrepreneurship that is so often not talked about, but it is extremely, extremely important to at least discuss a little bit.

Kathryn Shah:
My husband’s also an entrepreneur and he says it’s like climbing Mount Everest and it is, but climbing Mount Everest is dangerous and uncertain, but also exhilarating. It really makes you feel like you’re alive.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
And not talking from experience, I assume from both of us, but I am pretty sure that the very last, the 20 last steps, there are most probably four people that carry you up. And I think that’s really what it is, right? It’s this network and it’s this people around you that always kind of bounce you back up. And that’s the beauty of entrepreneurship is the people around you. This is a big question for someone like you, given your experience with big brands, having been a brand consultant now working in an extremely brand forward word company and product after everything you’ve been through, what does that sadly very misunderstood word branding mean to you? What does branding stand for to you, in your words, in your mind?

Kathryn Shah:
I love this question that you asked, and I’ve listened to other entrepreneurs on the podcast and thought about it a lot over the past few days. Branding is obviously more than a logo or a color palette. I think it is really the feeling that you create every time someone interacts with your brand. It’s of course built deliberately by shaping every touch point. US marketers think about those five Ps proposition, product, price, place, promotion, and that all of those work to create an experience that’s cohesive and memorable and emotionally resonant. And when done right, branding doesn’t just tell people what you do, it makes them feel something and draws them into your world. You ultimately, a brand is the memory a consumer has when they think of you.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
I love that. I hundred 10% agree with that and it’s so easy to say and so hard to do on an ongoing, consistent way. And the problem is the minute that you’re consistent, you tend to get boring. So you have to reinvent, but still be unbred reinvent. That’s the game that we all love to play, right? That’s what we are in for. But very, very, very well said, not surprisingly. So is if you look at your brand and you put it through a filter, what is one word that can describe it? I call it your brand DNA, but all of us marketers and brand people have our own word for it, like the true north, et cetera, et cetera. So for SAOs, it’s wow service for liquid death, it’s mischief. What is it for your brand if you put it all into one single word or two?

Kathryn Shah:
Well, we’re only three years old, three years old at the end of the month. So I think we’re still defining it. And right now it’s a battle between sweetness and exploration. And our tagline is exploring sweet beyond sugar. So if you think about the redefining sweetness piece, every detail from our packaging to our storytelling is really this invitation to explore a world of sweet beyond sugar, to create this sense of discovery in multiple ways through packaging that features our globally inspired sunset color story. It’s really inviting but unexpected. It’s through flavors that take a familiar ingredient like mango or pecans and interwind them in really unique and cross-cultural combinations like a mango chili or a mulberry fennel or a big pecan bar. And through imagery, as you’ve mentioned, that evokes a feeling and a sense of transporting someone to another world, really transforming every bite of chocolate into a feast for the aisles in the senses.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
I really like that. I really like that. And it’s so well thought through. And even though you say it hasn’t really been a hundred percent put in stone yet, I think it is what drives everyone day to day behind the brand to bring that feeling or that atmosphere or that vibe or whatever you want to call it, to bring that to life. And people sense it. And I think that those two words is exactly what you sense. It’s very nice. Very cool. One piece of brand advice for any founders as a takeaway, something that you think is just extremely important while building a brand. And that can be anything from business advice to creative advice to strategy advice, anything top of your mind that you think you might want to share with our listeners? I

Kathryn Shah:
Would say I have two, as it seems to be the theme of this

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Conversation, it’s always one plus one. It’s your brand,

Kathryn Shah:
Your own brand, one plus one equals three. Yeah, I would say the first is don’t just compete, reframe the conversation. The brand of the moment that has proven this is liquid death, right? They sell water in a can, but they the conversation around water into something wholly greater than the product itself. And we’re trying to do the same thing by creating a new paradigm for sweetness, right? So if you’re launching a brand, I would ask yourself, are you making a better version of what is already exists? Are you challenging the entire mantra and framework of a category? And I think brands that change the game are the ones that really ultimately prevail in the end. The second very much simpler piece of advice is to find yourself a co-founder who is basically the equivalent of your husband or wife or partner, somebody who’s your work spouse. And you have that level of comradery and trust and just a deep, deep intrinsic love for one another because you can’t find it. And it really will be the difference between success and failure.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
I love that. I really do. That’s fantastic advice. And Mike of Liquid Death was on this show very early on when I think some of the only press he received was the Los Angeles Business Journal, and I picked it up and I’m like, liquid Death, what? You’re insane. This is great. Let’s talk. So it’s actually really funny and listening to him back then, and that’s years ago, how he envisioned the brand and how it is today. I mean, it is just unbelievably spot on. It’s pretty amazing to actually re-listened to it for anyone out there who hasn’t picked up that episode. Alright, well, what’s next for the Spring and Mulberry brand? What are you excited about in the next six months? Anything you can share with my listeners so that we can be excited with you or for you?

Kathryn Shah:
Yes, absolutely. Well, we are launching a very, very cute and chic basket for Easter and Mother’s Day with underwater weaving, Erin Pollard and her mother Handmade Baskets from scratch, and Erin works at Vogue, so definitely one of these brand collaborations that just is spot on in terms of bringing beauty and craftsmanship and elevated prestige to our brand. So we’re so excited to work with Aaron and underwater weaving. And then for us, spring and Mulberry is really all about growing distribution and retailer presence so that we’re just in more places where people buy chocolate. So this spring we’re launching at Nordstrom’s Total Wine and WH Smith, which is one of the large travel retailers. So we’ll be at LAX and SFO and LaGuardia. And so that’s a game changer for us in terms of discovery and certainly totally on brand as it relates to travel and exploration.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So it’s basically world domination is what you’re saying, and that sounds pretty good to me. That’s fantastic. So we’ll see your brand pretty much everywhere, and I’m excited for that moment. How can people follow either you personally or where can they get to know your chocolate bars? Where do you want people to go to find out more?

Kathryn Shah:
We’d love for you to find out more about us on our website at springandmulberry.com or follow us on Instagram @spring.mulberry

Fabian Geyrhalter:
And one gorgeous website experience that is so bravo on that. And everyone enjoyed that experience. Kathryn, thank you so much for taking almost an hour of your Friday afternoon. May I add when we record this out of your week, we really, really appreciate it.

Kathryn Shah:
Thank you. I loved it.