I joined Moo Chocolates right out of college. When I joined the company as a sales and marketing associate, the founder had recently sold the brand into 3 local boutique stores in Greenwich, CT, and had just gotten the product on-shelf in the local Whole Foods Market as part of a local vendor program. I was the only employee. I quickly learned everything about the chocolate manufacturing process, including sourcing raw materials for our products, working with our co-packer on inventory timelines, managing our inventory to make sure we were never out of stock, doing regular Q&A checks (a favorite task, as you can imagine), and monitoring cash flow in QuickBooks.
While I was at Moo, and as we grew and developed partnerships with brokers and distributors that served brands nationwide, I also picked up a lot of best practices from some of the best brand managers in the CPG business. I learned how to sell into stores effectively, market our product’s key differentiators to grocery and specialty buyers, run a successful trade-show booth, follow-up with and close leads, and manage our shelf-presence and product design to help drive sales, success, and expansion. By the end of my first year there, Moo went from the founder and I hand-delivering chocolate to UNFI delivering Moo Chocolate bars to Whole Foods Markets nationwide.
I learned so much about building a business from an idea from that job, and it’s definitely where my passion for startups and helping the ”little guy” succeed started.
