Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Unfinished Business

In today’s hyperconnected world, the boundaries between you and your company’s brand are few and far between — gone are the days when founders could remain comfortably behind the scenes while your product did the talking. Now, getting ahead of the game means **getting in front of the lens. But embracing your brand isn’t about showing up flawless — it’s just about showing up.

Welcome to Unfinished Business, the podcast where we dig into the whys, hows, and WTFs of building and thriving in business — hosted by longtime founder friends Alex Schinasi and Lee Rotenberg. Every week, we’ll invite industry leaders and fellow entrepreneurs to candidly share their wins, truths, and lessons (and laugh while doing it).

This week, Patrice Poltzer helps us unpack the art of self-promotion — how to connect with your audience, ease the self-pressure, and get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Whether you’re building your first company or scaling your next, keep reading for your five-step guide to mastering your personal brand.

Tali Roth is a powerhouse in the design world — an extraordinary interior designer with an entrepreneurial spirit at heart. Like us, she’s balancing the chaos of raising a family and running a business, embracing the highs and lows that come with both. In this episode, Tali shares her career journey from the early fashion days to building her own interior design brand, coincidentally normalizing what’s quickly becoming a recurring theme on this show: You can’t have it all at once, but you can have it all.

When Alex first met Rea Ann Silva, founder of Beautyblender, in her New York office just over a year ago, it was clear she was someone special. What started as a casual meeting quickly grew into a close friendship and a successful partnership—most notably with their collaboration on the Beautyblender x HULKEN, which became an instant bestseller. Rea Ann has experienced the highs and lows of running a business. From navigating the chaos of entrepreneurship to building something from the ground up, her story truly resonates with us. Since starting this podcast, we’ve had more and more women reaching out, asking how to take those first crucial steps in launching a business. And with her incredible journey from makeup artist to category creator, Rea Ann is the perfect person to guide us through that.

Since launching the podcast, the question we get most regularly is: How did we get started? What steps did we take when we were going after our first ventures? If Unfinished Business is something of a time capsule for the years we’ve had so far, this episode is a tribute to the very beginning of it all. You’ll hear us yap about our first project together, and a present-day “how we built this” reflection. For those who don’t know: We first met at a dinner in Tel Aviv, brought together by mutual friends. We didn’t really stay in touch for almost a year after, as those passing social connections go. And then we met again at a wine bar in Yafo. We barely knew each other, and we weren’t experienced, but that night we bonded over our deep desires to build something impactful. And thank goodness we went to that wine bar. Because that simple action — which we could’ve just as easily not done — changed the trajectory of our lives. That’s the lesson in our story, and what we’re exploring today: When, how, and why to go. To do it. To push yourself out of where you want to be and take action.

In this episode, we’re focusing on the things that don’t work or haven’t gone our way. Failure is an inevitable part of every founder’s journey — scary as it may be. But as this episode teaches, how we move through those failures can inspire our next success. This week, we sat down with Roee Adler — former Chief Product Officer of WeWork and Soluto, who was part of 4 successful startup exits — but also 3 startup failures. His experiences run the gamut, making his story a masterclass in resilience, leadership, and the realities of pivoting when things don’t go according to plan.

It’s already been plenty-times confirmed, but in case you need it again: Manifestation. Really. Works. And this week’s guest has *made* it work for both of us, in business and life, several times over. This week’s guest isn’t just any manifestation coach. For three decades, Barbara Biziou’s been a secret weapon to entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, and career creatives at their most critical junctures. Her blended psychological-technical-traditional approach to manifestation has helped clients land acquisitions, navigate pivotal transitions, and even find life partners. In this episode, we demystify any lingering stigmas around manifestation — opting to share daily tactics and techniques you can start practicing on your next screen break. If you’re someone working toward or through a big life moment, buckle in. It’s time to embrace the woo-woo.

When it comes to fundraising, the stakes are high. You're not just selling an idea; you're inviting investors to believe in your vision, your team, and your ability to deliver results. But as serial entrepreneur, investor, and advisor Aaron Schwartz shared on our newest episode of Unfinished Business, perhaps the secret to mastering the art of pitching lies in another equally tricky endeavor — dating.

Welcome to Unfinished Business, the podcast where we dig into the whys, hows, and WTFs of building and thriving in business — hosted by longtime founder friends Alex Schinasi and Lee Rotenberg. Every week, we’ll invite industry leaders and fellow entrepreneurs to candidly share their wins, truths, and lessons (and laugh while doing it).

If you look close enough, finding investors can feel oddly familiar to finding a life partner. There’s the thrill of the pitch, the nerves of a first meeting — the ever-so-delicate “will we or won’t we” dance of it all. You’re at once vetting each other, feeling out your competition, and trying to channel your most authentic self.

It’s exhausting and confusing — so consider this guide to pitch clarity. With real-world stories, humor, and a heavy dose of hindsight, we walk through Aaron’s top strategies for securing a successful round — from nailing the first impression to knowing when to walk away. Take notes, pay close attention, then go seal your next deal.

What do ballet and building a company have in common?

Way more than you’d think.

Megan Fairchild is a principal dancer at New York City Ballet, an author, an NYU MBA grad, and a mom of three (including twins). In this episode, she gets radically honest about the pressure to perform—on stage, at work, and at home.

We talk about:

🩰 Perfectionism as a tool, not a personality flaw

🧠 How to give and receive feedback without spiraling

🤯 Living in constant comparison—and how to break out of it

🪞 What parenting taught her that ballet never could

🧘‍♀️ The anxiety that brought her to her knees—and how meditation brought her back

📚 Why she spent 15 years finishing her undergrad (and what it taught her about discipline)

If you’ve ever struggled with burnout, imposter syndrome, or the pressure to always be “on”—this episode will hit home.

🔔 Subscribe for more unfiltered conversations about ambition, identity, and doing things your way.

👇 Let us know in the comments: What’s something you learned the hard way about chasing excellence?

What if you could build a multi-million dollar company from a coin, some cellophane, and zero outside capital?

Alexandra Fine did exactly that.

She’s the Co-Founder and CEO of Dame Products—one of the most iconic sex toy brands in the world. In this episode, Alexandra gets radically honest about:

🔥 Starting her company in her grandma’s pool house

🔥 Prototyping her first product using plastic from an art supply store

🔥 Launching on Indiegogo and raising $575K in 45 days

🔥 Navigating bans, shadowbanning, and the politics of pleasure

🔥 Getting canceled (and crying about Glassdoor reviews)

🔥 Redefining ambition after becoming a mom

This is one of the most vulnerable, hilarious, and real conversations we’ve ever had on Unfinished Business.

💡 If you’re a founder questioning how to start, how to stay, or how to survive—you’ll want to hear every word.

🔔 Subscribe for more honest conversations on building, balancing, and betting on yourself.

👇 Drop a comment: What’s one thing you’ve been scared to launch without “enough” resources?

December always feels like a double-edged sword. It’s the season of magic and reflection, but also exhaustion. This year, it hit especially hard. Between selling a company, having a baby (Lee), scaling another business (Alex), and now training for a half marathon (both of us… what were we thinking?), we’re ending 2024 feeling like we’ve lived five lives in one. One of the tools that’s kept us grounded—and thriving—through it all is MANIFESTATION. For nearly a decade, we’ve leaned into this practice to shape our goals, dreams, and daily actions. It’s helped us land major business deals, navigate personal transitions, and even find our husbands. 😉 In this week’s episode of Unfinished Business, we’re skipping the guests and turning the mic on ourselves to share how manifestation plays into our journey, why it’s not just “woo-woo,” and the practical ways we use it to set ourselves up for success. Plus, we’re giving you a sneak peek into the Unfinished Business Manifestation Challenge — a 2025-setting exercise that’s part reset, part roadmap, and all about designing your best year yet.

This week’s guest is none other than our incredible co-founder at Clay, Omri Mendellevich — who’s aforementioned Dynamic Yield was eventually acquired for a whopping $300M+ by McDonald’s. Our conversation dives deep into the sometime precarious, always fun co-founder dynamics — what works, what doesn’t, and how to navigate the delicate balance of personalities, responsibilities, and challenges. When we first heard about Omri, it was the middle of 2020 — peak COVID. Tom from Houzz had reached out, saying, “I have this amazing entrepreneur. He’s a tech genius, one of the co-founders of Dynamic Yield, and maybe he’d be interested in joining you two on your next idea.” Naturally, we looked him up on LinkedIn and thought, “*He can’t possibly mean the Omri we’re thinking of.”* But it was. And we thought there was no way he’d even take a call with us, let alone consider becoming our co-founder. Spoiler alert: He did. And the rest is history.

Alex and Lee first met Ron Gura in Tel Aviv, when they had just launched their business and were finding their footing as founders. Now, years later, the pair welcome his insights on Unfinished Business. This episode delves into the early stages of entrepreneurship. Where to begin? How to find the right co-founder? Whether to seek VC funding? And most crucially... how to land on the right idea. With his extensive experience founding multiple companies, including his latest venture, Empathy, Ron brings invaluable insights into the common pitfalls, misconceptions, and critical first steps for new founders.

💡 “Give up right before you drown—but only after you’ve had Wim Hof training.” 💡

Jonathan Bush, co-founder of Athena Health and now Zus Health, has seen it all—building a billion-dollar company, taking it public, getting fired, and now starting again from scratch.

In this raw and unfiltered conversation, Jonathan shares:

🚀 The brutal truth about being a founder (and why most people shouldn’t do it)

🛑 How to know when to quit—and when to suffer through the hard part

⚡ The MacGyver vs. The Wolf framework for hiring the right early employees

💰 Why most startups don’t actually fail on the idea—but on execution

🔥 What he learned from getting fired from the company he built from the ground upIf you’re a founder, investor, or just someone trying to survive the chaos of building something from nothing, this is the episode you need to hear.

🔗 Subscribe for more candid conversations on business, leadership, and the startup grind.

In this episode, Alex and Lee chat with Daniella Rabbani about her multifaceted career as an actor, podcaster, Yiddish singer, and mother. Daniella shares her journey from Orthodox Judaism to pursuing her artistic passions, her recent performance in Poland on Holocaust Remembrance Day, and how she balances motherhood with her creative pursuits.

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 Introduction & Daniella's Creative Background

3:38 Singing in Yiddish & Cultural Heritage

7:26 Recent Performance in Poland for Holocaust Remembrance Day

14:54 Instilling Jewish Culture & History in Her Children

19:29 Transitioning from Orthodox Judaism to Acting

26:22 Finding Your Soul's Calling vs. Societal Expectations

30:33 The Importance of Joy in Your Work

34:42 Maintaining Your Energy While Following Your Path

36:16 Final Advice for Taking the Leap into Your Next Chapter

We’ve all been there—feeling exhausted, out of balance, or simply off, but pushing through anyway because that’s what we’ve been conditioned to do.

Work harder, train harder, do more. But what happens when your body starts waving every red flag in the book, and no one—including you—is listening?

Our guest on Unfinished Business this week, Kim Strother, knows this journey better than most.

A personal trainer, yoga instructor, and holistic health coach, Kim has spent over 20 years helping people feel their best. But for much of that time, she was ignoring her own body’s desperate calls for help.

In this episode of Unfinished Business, we talk with Catalina Garcia, founder of Bonded, an app that helps users understand their sexuality and improve intimacy. Catalina shares insights on maintaining passion in long-term relationships, cultural differences in discussing sex between Europe and America, and practical advice for exploring personal desires. The conversation covers everything from the importance of self-understanding to communication techniques with partners, addressing the "orgasm gap," and how to reintroduce novelty into established relationships. This candid and enlightening discussion aims to normalize conversations about pleasure, intimacy, and sex education while offering practical tips for all relationship stages. Perfect for anyone looking to enhance their connection with themselves and their partners.0:00 - Introduction to Catalina and Bonded

1:30 - Who is Bonded for? Women, young men, and couples

3:01 - Maintaining intimacy in long-term relationships

5:20 - Creating a monthly sex "bucket list" with your partner

7:09 - Overcoming shame and getting comfortable with your sexuality

10:40 - Cultural differences in sex education between US and Europe

16:28 - Surprising insights about men's sexuality preferences

20:58 - The importance of enthusiastic consent

24:18 - Sex toy recommendations for beginners

26:51 - Understanding the "orgasm gap" between men and women

Join hosts Alex Schinasi and Lee Rotenberg on this episode of Unfinished Business as they sit down with Isabelle Kenyon, pioneering entrepreneur and founder of Calibrate. In this candid conversation, Isabelle shares her remarkable journey from investment banking to revolutionizing healthcare following a life-changing injury. Discover how she built a company in the GLP-1 space before most people had heard of Ozempic, and her insights on building category-defining businesses.

Timestamps:

00:53 - Isabelle's background and early career path

01:53 - The skiing accident that changed everything

03:18 - How breaking her back inspired her healthcare mission

04:52 - Developing an entrepreneurial mindset

07:53 - The pharmacy frustration that sparked her business idea

11:21 - The thesis behind direct-to-consumer pharma

14:22 - Pioneering GLP-1 medications before mainstream adoption

18:08 - Understanding Ozempic and metabolic health

24:45 - Raising $100M in just one year for Calibrate

31:12 - The challenges of building without a co-founder

35:37 - Isabelle's next venture: a community platform for GLP-1 users

When Alex found out she was pregnant right after raising their first million in VC funding, she burst into tears. When Lee was at her breaking point, she found herself lying on a WeWork bathroom floor. This is the unfiltered story of two founders navigating motherhood and entrepreneurship – complete with all the tears, guilt, and impossible choices that never make it to the highlight reel. In this deeply personal episode, Alex and Lee share their nine-year journey of building companies while raising families. They dive into the myth of perfect balance, the power of authentic partnership, and why being fulfilled in your work can make you a better parent (and vice versa). Key topics: - The reality of pregnancy announcements when you're running a startup - Finding strength in vulnerability and imperfection - How to build a support system that actually works - Navigating guilt and expectations as a founder-mom - Why "having it all" looks different than you might think

Pivoting in life and business isn’t just about making changes; it’s about navigating uncertainty with intention, self-awareness, and a clear framework. In this episode of Unfinished Business, Sarah Schaff shared her incredible journey—from lawyer to entrepreneur to executive coach—filled with actionable insights and inspiring anecdotes.

In this week’s episode of Unfinished Business, we sat down with Katharina Hoeftmann Ciobotaru, author of Guten Morgen, Tel Aviv! and a powerhouse entrepreneur. Katharina shared her hard-earned wisdom on overcoming self-doubt, embracing vulnerability, and redefining what it means to ask for help. Here’s how her story inspires us to rethink the way we approach success.

For most of their careers, Alex and Lee believed a bigger team meant a stronger company. Now they believe the opposite, and they've got the receipts: $50M in revenue last year with seven full-time employees and payroll running at just 4%. In this solo episode, they make the case that in the AI era, headcount has flipped from a status symbol into a warning sign.

They break down what they call the "minimum viable company," where maximum revenue per employee beats a swollen org chart every time. The model runs on three layers: lean in-house leadership, a network of agencies for specialized work, and an AI layer where every team member has their own assistant handling the project management that used to go to junior hires and interns. The engine underneath it all is a company "brain" built in Notion that their agents plug into.

In this episode:

- Why Alex and Lee now read "I have 30 employees" as a sign a company is doing it wrong

- The exact numbers behind their claim: $50M, seven people, 4% payroll

- How the AI layer replaced the junior hires and interns they used to rely on

- Why they built their company "brain" in Notion, and how their AI agents plug into it

- The hiring rule they live by: wait until you literally can't, then demand a clear ROI

- Why speed, not headcount, is the real driver of winning (and losing)

- The honest downsides of a tiny team, from taking out the trash to dropped balls

Subscribe to Unfinished Business for candid conversations with founders who've actually done it.

🎧 Watch on YouTube, listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Katie Lefkowitz was a lifelong Snickers fanatic when a colon cancer scare and a doctor's orders to cut sugar should have ended that relationship. Instead, she went home and started experimenting with date-based caramel in her own kitchen.

Katie is the founder of Harken, the better-for-you candy brand now in nearly 7,000 stores including Walmart, Costco, Sprouts, and Kroger, with Whole Foods launching this fall. Before Harken, she was COO at CAULIPOWER, the original cauliflower-crust pizza brand, and that food-world network is how a printed-out prototype with stickers on it turned into Harken's first national retail deal.

In this episode of Unfinished Business, she walks through how that deal happened (including a calendar invite with no explanation attached), why she skipped the usual direct-to-consumer playbook entirely, and what she's learned running a five-person team through a Costco launch.

Our biggest takeaways:

- How a colon cancer scare turned into a national candy brand

- The unmarked calendar invite that got Harken into Walmart

- Why she walked into her first retail pitch with fake, printed-out packaging

- The case for skipping DTC and going straight to retail

- Running investor relationships through a monthly two-hour office hours block

- Why Harken is overhauling its packaging in Q3, and what drove the change

- The fiber stat she says is moving more product than any ad

Subscribe to Unfinished Business for more unfiltered founder stories. New episodes weekly on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

They cooked dog food in a rented kitchen in Queens. Their friends thought they were insane. That was 2018.

Today, Spot & Tango is a 100% direct-to-consumer, subscription dog food company doing $120-130M in revenue and growing 60% year over year. This is all with zero retail shelves, 95% subscription, and a $35M factory they built themselves to protect a category they invented.

Dylan Munro is the co-founder and COO of Spot & Tango. Before this, he was at McKinsey, diligencing DTC brands for private equity firms. He grew up in Canada in an entrepreneurial family and always knew he wanted to build something of his own. When his co-founder Russell was cooking human-grade dog food in a studio apartment on the Upper East Side and neighbors kept asking to buy it, Dylan was introduced at exactly the right moment. They quit their jobs, rented an incubator kitchen in Queens, and started making dog food by hand.

In 2020, they launched UnKibble: a freeze-dried, human-grade dog food that was genuinely unlike anything on the market. They called the category "fresh dry." No one else was doing it. They sold through four months of inventory in four days.

That was the signal. They raised money, built a $35M factory in Allentown, Pennsylvania, brought manufacturing in-house, added over 20 points of margin, and went profitable in late 2023. They've been growing double-digits every year since.

On this episode of Unfinished Business, Alex and Lee sit down with Dylan for one of the most practically dense DTC conversations they've had, covering the real mechanics of how Spot & Tango actually scaled.

In this episode:- The website quiz that added 10-15 questions between a visitor and checkout and doubled conversion while cutting CAC in half (yes, more friction = better results)

- How they scaled creative throughput 10-20x: hundreds of pieces a month, 70% UGC, a systematic outreach process to source creators, and a full AB testing operation on Meta

- Why Dylan calls himself and his co-founder "golden retrievers" and how the discipline of saying no built a $130M business

- The decision to spend $35M on a factory (and exactly why it was the right call)

- The "fresh dry" category: what it is, why nobody else was doing it, and why owning the manufacturing was the only way to own the category

- How Spot & Tango uses TikTok

- The D2C vs retail debate they have all the time and where that conversation is right now

- Pop Gum: the dental chew they launched 7 months ago that's already at $10M+ ARR

Dylan is the kind of operator who does the unsexy work, thinks clearly about the fundamentals, and has the receipts. If you're building a DTC brand and trying to figure out how to actually scale efficiently, this episode is for you.

The DTC era of "raise money first, ask questions later" is over. And Ben Cogan saw it coming.

Ben is the co-founder of Hubble Contacts, one of the original DTC brands, which grew to $100M+ in revenue and earned him a spot on Forbes 30 Under 30. He then founded Mockingbird Strollers (now in Target), Agora (a DTC acquisition firm with $120M raised and $200M+ across its portfolio), and Beanstalk, the invite-only DTC conference that's become one of the most sought-after gatherings in the space. Before all of that, he was at Boston Consulting Group and got his first taste of early-stage DTC at Harry's in 2014.

In this episode, Ben gives Alex and Lee a candid masterclass on what it actually takes to build (and keep building) a profitable DTC brand. He's seen the boom. He's seen the bust. And the thread running through every brand that's made it? Profitability from day one.

We covered:

→ The VC-backed DTC reckoning: Companies that went public in 2021 are down 80–90%. Meanwhile, the bootstrapped brands that grew on profitability and cash flow are the ones getting acquired at the best multiples. The playbook has flipped and founders need to know it.

→ Why 80% of retail is still offline: Even outside of grocery. Ben breaks down why meeting your customers in stores isn't just a revenue play… it makes your existing digital spend more efficient by giving buyers one more touchpoint to actually convert.

→ The $20–25M omnichannel threshold: Ben's rule of thumb for when going online-only stops working and what happens to your incremental Meta spend when you cross it without a retail presence.

→ Attribution in an omnichannel world: Triple Whale and Northbeam are useful, but Ben's most impactful attribution strategy is also the simplest: geo tests. Pull your Meta spend in specific states and watch how your offline (Target) numbers respond.

→ Bootstrapped = the best acquirable business: Why Agora specifically looks for profitable, bootstrapped companies and why "you can't hide if you're bootstrapped" is the ultimate test of product-market fit.

→ How to think about an exit: When does it make sense to sell? What do strategic acquirers actually want? Ben breaks down what the best acquisitions have in common and what role scale, omnichannel presence, and founder involvement play in making a deal work.

→ Playing defense on dupes: Alex and Lee get real about the copycats coming for Hulken and Ben explains the only answer that actually works: keep building the brand the dupes literally cannot replicate.

→ Beanstalk: What Ben built, why it's invite-only, and what he hopes the DTC community gets out of showing up.

This is the episode for founders who are building profitable businesses the hard way without a safety net, without VC subsidies, and without anywhere to hide. And who want to know exactly where that path leads.

He's seen the balance sheets behind the brands your feed tells you are crushing it. And what he's found? The gap between the press release and the spreadsheet is bigger than you think.

Nate Rosen is the co-founder of Express Checkout: the media company covering CPG, consumer brands, and retail with the kind of depth and honesty the industry doesn't always love. With a twice-weekly Substack newsletter, a weekly podcast, and an Instagram account he grew to 36k followers in under three months, Nate has built one of the most trusted independent voices in the consumer brand world.

Before Express Checkout, he spent years inside CPG. He was watching founders navigate cash flow crises while posting glossy Erewhon launch announcements, watching brands land major retailers without the sell-through infrastructure to support it, and learning what actually separates the brands that compound from the ones that flame out quietly.

On this episode of Unfinished Business, Alex and Lee sit down with Nate for one of the most grounded, practical conversations we've had yet.

In this episode:

- Why you cannot compare yourself to other brands and why doing so is holding you back (the RXBAR lesson is one you'll remember)

- D2C vs. retail packaging: why your best-converting DTC packaging will probably fail on shelf

- The "three-second rule" that separates retail-winning brands from the ones that get passed by

- When a DTC brand is actually ready to go retail and the specific signals Nate looks for before recommending the jump

- Why your influencer strategy needs to match your distribution strategy (and the expensive mistake brands keep making)

- How Siete, Liquid Death, and OLLY built brand + distribution strategies that compound and what you can take from each

- How he grew @expresscheckout to 36,000 Instagram followers in three months

Nate is the kind of person who will give you the real answer even when it's not the one you were hoping for. And in a world where so much of the CPG conversation is performative, that's exactly what this industry needs more of.

If you're a founder building a consumer brand, whether you're DTC-only, thinking about retail, or already in stores, this episode is for you.

Most marketing decisions aren't driven by strategy. They're driven by ego.

That's the honest (and slightly uncomfortable) truth that Brooke Yoakam, founder of AvidAI and the brand analyst behind @thebrandblueprint_, dropped on this week's Unfinished Business. And she's not wrong.

Brooke has been an entrepreneur since she was 13. She built GiftPocket, a customer acquisition platform with 300+ brand partnerships (including Chipotle, ASOS, and Nasty Gal). She then founded AvidAI, an AI-powered platform that helps Shopify brands unlock retention insights and streamline acquisition. She went through Techstars Boulder in 2022. And somewhere along the way, she started an Instagram account @thebrandblueprint_ just as a creative outlet. Now she has 100,000+ followers who tune in to watch her break down the why behind every brand move.

In this episode, Brooke gives Alex and Lee a masterclass in how to think about brand building from the inside out, the ego-driven marketing decisions that quietly kill brands, the real meaning of ROI (and why most people get the timing wrong), and the framework she uses to help brands stop guessing and start measuring.

We covered:

→ Making your product habitual: How to position your product as a need, not a want, and use data to time your retargeting perfectly (hint: if you're hitting someone at the 30-day mark and they still have half a bottle, you're just burning money)

→ The "why" behind great brand decisions: What the BEIS car wash pop-up actually revealed about crisis management and brand narrative control

→ Super Bowl ads & opportunity cost: Why a $10M Super Bowl commercial might be your worst $10M investment, and what you could do instead

→ ROI needs time: The Ole Henriksen/Sunni Lee story, Nello at Coachella, and why the brands that pull the plug too early never see the return

→ Collabs done right (and very wrong): Why "Target collabs is where brands go to die," and how to find the right brand partner without diluting your equity

→ Data-driven content: The 30-day/30-idea testing framework, A-B hook testing, and how to use ManyChat UTM links to actually track sales back to specific posts

→ Going viral ≠ making sales: The brand that got 40M views and zero sales, and what went wrong

→ What actually makes a brand premium: Hint: it's not the price tag. It's whether your customers pay full price every time.

→ TikTok Shop: Why it works for some brands and quietly damages others (and what Hulken should think about before jumping in)

→ Live shopping, packaging, guerrilla marketing: Brooke's live consultation on what she'd do for Hulken if she were on the team

This is one of those episodes you're going to want to send to your whole team if you want to learn the best tactics and strategies for brand building in 2026.

She spent two years building one product. Went through 207 prototypes. Filed 4 patents. Heard 2,500 nos from investors. And now has 200 of them.

That's Steph Hon, founder and CEO of Cadence: the modular, magnetic, TSA-compliant capsule system that's redefining how people carry their routines on the go. Made with recycled ocean plastics. Built with a philosophy that hasn't wavered since day one: don't rush. Don't compromise. Get it right.

Before building one of the most innovative product brands in the DTC space, Steph was a ballet dancer, then a film director, then a sports marketer. None of which is a traditional path to founding a CPG company. But every chapter built something she'd eventually use: a heightened physical awareness of how people interact with their products, where friction lives, and how design can make everyday life genuinely easier.

On this episode of Unfinished Business, Alex and Lee sit down with Steph for a conversation about what it actually takes to invent a new category.

In this episode:

- Why "we don't rush product" is the most controversial thing about Cadence and why they don't care

- How Steph went from cold-messaging angel investors on LinkedIn to 200 investors (after 2,500 nos)

- What it means to build a product that only truly "clicks" once it's in your hands and how you sell that DTC

- How her background as a ballet dancer and filmmaker shaped how she designs product

- The kombucha meeting that changed how she thought about fundraising entirely

- How she's thinking about retail expansion, DTC growth, and Amazon strategy in 2025

- Building a loyal, long-term team when you can't afford to pay anyone yet

Steph is the kind of founder who doesn't take shortcuts when no one's looking.

If you're a founder building something genuinely new, or fighting the urge to ship before it's ready, this episode is for you.

Season 2 of Unfinished Business is officially here and a lot has changed since we wrapped Season 1.

When we first started this podcast, we were still at Clay. Hulken was growing, but it wasn’t our full focus. Over the last year, we left venture-backed SaaS, went all in on Hulken, hit $50M in revenue, launched nationwide in Target with an end cap, expanded across Asia, opened our first office in New York, and built a small but senior team around us.

This season is about what happens after the early momentum. When growth is real. When retail calls. When international demand shows up. When profitability matters. When you start asking how to go from 50 to 100 without losing control.

We’ll be building in public. We’re sharing how we’re thinking about intentional growth, breaking the Meta ceiling, retail strategy, international expansion, and what it actually takes to scale a profitable DTC brand today.

If you’re a DTC founder, operator, or aspiring builder, Season 2 is about learning in real time. And if there’s a brand you think we should be studying this season, tell us. We’re just getting started.

Melanie Travis didn’t go to fashion school. She didn’t work at a legacy brand. She didn’t have a co-founder, a warehouse, or a team.

What she did have was a miserable experience swimsuit shopping for a company retreat and a hunch that other women felt the same.

In this episode of Unfinished Business, Melanie joins Alex and Lee to share how she turned a universal frustration into Andie Swim, a nationally recognized brand that’s sold millions of swimsuits and recently expanded into new categories through strategic acquisition.

We talk about:

– The origin story: from BarkBox employee to Kickstarter campaign to CEO

– How she taught herself the fashion supply chain using an Airbnb “fashion tour”

– Why she believes the classic DTC playbook no longer works

– The truth about raising $30M and still struggling to reach profitability

– Her approach to omnichannel growth, from Nordstrom to private label deals

– What she looks for in brand acquisitions (and how she bought her first)

– How she’s building a multi-brand portfolio while juggling two young kids

Melanie keeps it brutally honest about fundraising, scaling, hiring, and growth. This episode is a masterclass for consumer founders and a reality check for anyone chasing the DTC dream.

No guests. No prep. Just us.

In this episode, we sat down together — two co-founders, two moms, two longtime partners in life and business — to talk about what’s really keeping our relationships strong. And what’s absolutely not.

We covered:

– Why Alex has never farted in front of her husband in 10 years (yes, really)

– Why French kissing still matters (even after a decade)

– How to maintain attraction without pretending it’s 2014

– What our moms taught us about effort and appearance

– The one yearly trip that saves our sanity and our spark

– Why mystery is underrated and boundaries still matter

This is the stuff that doesn’t always make it into podcast interviews.

But it’s real, it’s funny, and we think it’s worth saying out loud.

If you’ve ever wondered how to balance love, motherhood, marriage, and not totally losing yourself… this one’s for you.

Watch the full episode now and don’t forget to subscribe.

Liz Teich and her brand The New York Stylist is the real deal. A New York fashion stylist with nearly 20 years of experience, a loyal online following, and a sustainable wardrobe philosophy that actually makes sense.

In this episode, Liz sits down with Alex and Lee to talk about how she built her business, her brand, and her confidence… without chasing trends or cutting corners.

We cover:

• The personal story behind The New York Stylist

• What it’s really like to style celebrities (including Mike Tyson)

• Her best advice for anyone starting a creative business

• Why she prioritizes sustainability and “shopping your closet”

• What pieces actually belong in your wardrobe

• The connection between style, confidence, and showing up for yourself

Plus: why Lee needs to clean her sneakers, how Liz fakes the perfect tuck, and the psychological power of getting dressed (even if it’s just for your mailman).

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by fashion, disconnected from your closet, or unsure how to show up with confidence—this episode will make you feel seen, smarter, and a little more stylish.

Tieghan Gerard built one of the most beloved food brands on the internet.

Today, Half Baked Harvest has over 6 million followers across platforms, four bestselling cookbooks, a candle line, a sold-out national tour with Williams-Sonoma, and a fiercely loyal community that shows up for everything she creates.

But the story behind the brand? It’s chaotic, personal, and deeply real.

In this episode of Unfinished Business, Tieghan sits down with Alex and Lee to talk about:

• Starting Half Baked Harvest with her mom at 19

• Growing up as one of eight kids in a wildly creative (and noisy) household

• Managing anxiety while running a massive business

• Why she focuses on her website and email list (not just social media)

• How she stays creatively inspired without following trends

• What she’d do if she had to start all over in 2025

• And why she still makes pancakes for lunch when she’s feeling off

This isn’t a story about recipes. It’s about resilience, identity, and building a brand that lasts… without selling your soul to the algorithm.

If you’re a creative, entrepreneur, or multi-hyphenate woman trying to build something real, this one’s for you.

Every episode, Alex and Lee talk about how fast Hulken is growing. This one is about what that growth actually costs.

For the first time, they get candid about the messy middle of scaling a bootstrapped, vertically integrated brand: chronically out of stock on their bestsellers, rerouting inventory away from their own website to protect retail relationships, and discovering that the model that built them is now the thing holding them back. They get into why being sold out can be both a brand asset and a real liability, why their lowest reviews have nothing to do with the product, and how they're testing new products outside their own factories to keep the core team focused.

It's an honest, mid-sprint debrief on omnichannel growing pains, told from inside the company, with no VC safety net and a Q4 they can't fully announce yet.

What you'll take away:

- Why "we're always sold out" is a harder problem than it sounds

- How they decide which channel gets limited inventory when there isn't enough to go around

- Why retail partners now come before their own DTC customers

- The real reason great products still get three-star reviews

- How tariffs and shipping costs reshaped their inventory decisions

- Why they're launching new products with outside manufacturers

- How they're planning 2027 while fighting to stay in stock this yearNew episodes of Unfinished Business drop weekly. Follow on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts so you don't miss the next one.

Victoria Brito has lived many lives: ballerina, global fashion model, queer icon, and now podcast host. But beneath the resume is a story of resilience, reinvention, and radical self-trust.

In this episode of Unfinished Business, Victoria opens up about:

• Being raised by a single mom and mentored by Pelé (yes, that Pelé)

• What it takes to stay grounded in industries built on performance

• Her viral relationship story—and what it’s like becoming a queer stepmom overnight

• Cutting ties with people (including family) to protect your peace

• The shift from being the face of a campaign… to becoming the voice behind the mic

Victoria is magnetic, raw, hilarious, and refreshingly self-aware. You’ll walk away from this one thinking about your identity, your energy, and your boundaries.

Subscribe for more honest conversations about growth, pivots, and the messiness of building a life you actually want.

What do branding and dating have in common?

More than you’d think.

This week on Unfinished Business, we sit down with creative director and wellness advocate Alex Sall to talk about what it really means to show up as your authentic self—in business and in love.

We get into:

• How to build a brand that actually feels like you

• Why confidence is the real secret to success (on Hinge and on Shopify)

• The toxic trap of outsourcing everything too early

• How a wellness journey can start with flossing—and lead to life-changing fertility insights

• Why “settling” is often just fear in disguise

Plus: Red lipstick, functional medicine, gut health, and why your oral microbiome might matter more than your Instagram.

This one’s honest, eye-opening, and unexpectedly hilarious.

Alex and Lee are back with a brutally honest look at what it’s really like to build a profitable, non-venture-backed brand.

They reflect on:

• Scaling Hulken to $30M+ with a tiny team

• Saying no to VC—and why they’re not looking back

• What it means to build a “Kleenex-level” brand in a world of dupes

• DTC strategy, community magic, and the power of going slow

Plus: They tease new product drops (carry-on alert!), share their TikTok Shop strategy, and reveal what’s actually on their minds as founders in year two.

It’s fun. It’s raw. It’s the season opener you didn’t know you needed.

Would you post about your period online to build your business? Nadya Okamoto did—and that’s just the beginning.

In this episode of Unfinished Business, we sit down with Nadya Okamoto, the fearless founder of August, a Gen Z brand that’s flipping the tampon industry on its head.

We talk about:

• What DTC brands get wrong about Gen Z (and why “Hey Bestie” doesn’t work)

• Why she posted 5,500+ videos to launch August—and still creates 5+ daily

• How she keeps CAC low and virality high with unpolished, human content

• How to build a brand without becoming the brand

• Her brutally honest advice for first-time founders (hint: it’s not “raise capital”)

• What founders get wrong about social media, team building, and retail expansion

This is the blueprint for building a mission-led brand without faking the voice to get there.

If you’re a founder, content creator, or aspiring entrepreneur—watch this.

Justin Allen co-founded TUSHY a decade ago to solve a problem most Americans didn't know they had. No roadmap, no comparable brand, no playbook… just a bet that if you made toileting joyful enough, people would come around. They did.

Now, ten years in, Justin is asking harder questions: What does brand even mean when the media landscape has completely fractured? How do you build creative at scale without losing what makes you you? And when do you trust the data, and when do you just flip the table and build?

In this episode:

- How TUSHY created a category from scratch and what the "toothpaste out of the tube moment" actually means for retention

- Why Justin went "kicking and screaming" into founder content and what made him change his mind

- The performance creative orchestra: what it is, why volume isn't enough, and what strategic diversity in creative actually looks like

- What brand meant in 2015 vs. what it means today and why Justin has stopped pretending he knows

- Learning velocity vs. just "moving fast"

- When failure is an option, and when (with plumbing under pressure 24/7) it absolutely isn't

- His take on retail, TikTok Shop, and how to innovate for a channel instead of force-feeding itSubscribe to Unfinished Business on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. New episodes every week.

Two things have been true at Hulken since year one: no dropshipping, and only say yes to collabs that actually earn it. On the eve of launching their most complex product development yet (a full pattern collab with Posh Peanut), Alex and Lee sit down to work out, on camera, what they actually think now.

This is a solo episode. No guest filter, no rehearsed takes. At $50M, the playbook isn't finished. The most honest thing you can say is that we’re still breaking rules we set when we were smaller.

If you're building a product brand somewhere between "we're figuring this out" and "we've figured this out," this is the real version of that conversation.

What's in this episode:

- The reason Alex and Lee said no to dropshipping for years (and the exact conditions that finally changed their minds)

- Alex's 3 non-negotiables for every brand collab

- Why Lee won't say yes to any retailer that won't buy inventory upfront

- How the Beautyblender collab landed Hulken backstage at the Grammys and the Oscars (the bag, not them)

- The "position of power" test that tells you when your brand is actually ready to dropship

Subscribe to Unfinished Business on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Most founders building consumer brands think DTC is the goal. Allison Luvera knew from day one it was just the testing ground. Getting into Whole Foods, Costco, Safeway, and Total Wine with five employees and a patented box wine format was a three-year plan built on intentional price testing, customer research, and unit economics priced for retail before she ever walked into a retailer.

Allison is the co-founder and CEO of Juliet Wine, one of the fastest growing wine brands for women in the US. She came up running luxury marketing for some of the biggest names in spirits, and took everything she learned about how big brands operate to build something they couldn't easily copy, a patented cylindrical format that creates a brand moat in an industry that's notoriously hard to protect.

This conversation covers the full journey: why beverage alcohol never had a DTC golden age, how she navigated the skepticism from distributors even after proving DTC traction, the copycat wine brand that literally used her co-founder's hand in their marketing photos, and why she thinks fundraising should come with a warning label.

Highlights:

- Why Allison priced Juliet for retail margins on day one, even while selling DTC only

- How 70% of Juliet's customers had never considered box wine before they found her

- The three-tier alcohol distribution system and why it makes DTC structurally difficult at scale

- The story of a major wine corporation stealing Juliet's photography and her public LinkedIn response

- Why exits in alcohol happen earlier than most industries and how that shapes her fundraising strategy

- What it actually takes to get into Whole Foods as a five-person team

- The Sephora analogy: why women in wine have always been forced to choose between quality and brand

Subscribe to Unfinished Business wherever you listen to podcasts and if you loved this episode, make sure to leave a review. Learn more about Juliet Wine at julietwine.com.

Greta Meyer started Sequel in a college classroom. She and her co-founder identified a physics flaw in the tampon that nobody had fixed in almost 100 years, and spent years navigating FDA clearance, manufacturing partnerships, and a medical device regulatory process most founders would have quit on. They launched DTC, spent almost nothing on ads, and built their brand through partnerships instead. Yankee Stadium reached out to them. So did the Indiana Fever.

The thing that makes Sequel work is also the thing that makes it hard to copy: radical focus. They're not trying to reinvent the whole menstrual experience. They fixed one fluid mechanics problem and built everything around that.

In this episode of Unfinished Business, Alex and Lee sit down with Greta to talk about what it actually takes to break into a commoditized, legacy-dominated category when you can't out-spend the incumbents and the product itself is invisible to the consumer.

In this episode:

- Why "we're not trying to solve everything for everyone" is the strategy, not just a line

- How Sequel redesigned a class two medical device on a retrofit of existing machinery, and why that constraint was actually the unlock

- Building brand in a taboo category without making it feel taboo

- Why Yankee Stadium and the Indiana Fever came to them, and what that taught Greta about how to find partners worth having

- The zero-ad growth playbook: organic social, affiliates, and stadium-as-acquisition-channel

- Why going DTC first, before retail, gives you the customer data and the brand credibility you need to walk into a retailer from a position of strength

- What she'd tell a founder who's about to do outreach to a partner they want: wait

- The team structure behind a 6-person operation running a medical device startup

- How Sequel is thinking about Amazon, and why TikTok Shop was the right test before it

Greta is the kind of founder who knows exactly what she's building and exactly what she isn't. If you're entering a crowded market and wondering whether you need a huge ad budget to compete, this one will reframe that question entirely.

Suze Dowling has seen the inside of more DTC brands than almost anyone. As co-founder of Pattern Brands, a multi-brand home goods portfolio she's been building since 2018, she doesn't just run one brand. She runs five at once on a shared services team, which means she watches the same mistakes play out across categories, price points, and growth stages, over and over again.

The biggest one: founders who scale before the math works.

In this episode of Unfinished Business, Alex and Lee sit down with Suze for one of the most honest DTC conversations they've had. She talks about what she actually looks for when acquiring a brand, why she's shut down companies that were still profitable, and why the DTC equation most founders ignore is the thing that determines whether your brand survives.

In this episode:

- The DTC math equation Suze uses to diagnose any brand: revenue = AOV x conversion x sessions, and why most founders try to scale before all three are working

- Why profitability was Pattern's non-negotiable when the rest of the industry was chasing growth at all costs

- How she decided to shut down profitable brands, and why she calls it opportunity cost, not failure

- The thing founders lie to themselves about most: product-market fit

- What running five brands simultaneously teaches you that one brand never could

- Why she still calls five customers herself every week, by phone

- How tariffs forced the hard calls she already knew she had to make

- Pattern's global team structure and how she got lean before lean was the obvious move

- Where she stands on AI right now, and why not using it is "truly petrifying" to her

Suze is the kind of operator who has made the expensive mistakes, learned from them, and built a system around never making them again. If you're building a DTC brand right now and you're not sure whether your math is actually working, this one is for you.

We turned the mic around. For the first time on Unfinished Business, Alex and Lee are interviewing someone from inside Hulken, their own Chief Brand Officer.

Tara Seruya has been working with Alex and Lee for over a decade. They first met at Ivy, their first company together. When Hulken came along, Tara came with it. She's the person behind every brand decision that resonates: the Supreme collab, the Oscars, the community of makeup artists, hairstylists, and set designers who carry Hulken everywhere and post about it without being asked.

In this episode, Alex and Lee ask her everything. The things that worked. The things that surprised them. The expensive editorial shoots that didn't land. The authentic, messy UGC that outperforms everything.

We covered:

→ What luxury actually means: Hulken is "conceptually not luxurious." But it makes you feel unstoppable.

→ The organic-first paid strategy: Hulken never runs content on paid until it proves itself organically.

→ Obsession over content skills: Hulken find superfans who were already carrying the bag every single day and ask them to tell their story. Tara explains why that distinction changes everything

→ The creative community told us where to go: Makeup artists, hairstylists, prop stylists, and set designers were using Hulken organically before there was a brand strategy around it.

→ Solving a real problem: Alex on why none of the brand, the collabs, or the cultural moments would have mattered if the product wasn't genuinely solving a daily problem for real people.

→ Brand content vs. paid content: How Hulken keeps these lanes intentionally separate

→ Branding advice. In ASMR. Lee asked. Tara delivered.

If you want to understand how a product goes from utilitarian rolling bag to cultural icon (without losing itself along the way) this is the blueprint.

Listen and subscribe everywhere you get your podcasts!

Seven people. $50 million in annual revenue. One brand that somehow manages to feel like it's everywhere.

If you've ever wondered how Hulken actually works (the operating model, the org chart, the tools, the strategy), this is the episode.

This week on Unfinished Business, there's no guest. It's just Alex Schinasi and Lee Rotenberg, co-founders of Hulken and co-hosts of this show, getting into the questions they get asked most often: How do you run a brand this size with a team this small? How do you think about brand vs. growth? What does AI actually look like in your day-to-day? And what's actually coming next?

Alex and Lee built Hulken from scratch into one of the most recognizable product brands in the DTC space: a rolling bag that started as a practical solution and became a cult object. They did it with a lean team, a very deliberate agency model, and a relentless focus on what actually moves the needle.

In this episode:

→ The $50M with 7 people model: Why Hulken runs on a lean in-house team and a carefully chosen agency network

→ Alex's recent aha moment: growth and brand have completely different north stars, and treating them as the same function quietly dilutes both. Here's what changes when you split them.

→ Building AI systems at Hulken: The first AI agent they're building internally

→ The Claude Cowork morning routine: Alex's exact setup

→ Why the fact that Hulken isn't a Hermès bag is one of its biggest brand advantages

→ Hiring AI agents instead of humans: Why the question isn't just "should we hire?" but "should this role be a human?"

→ What's coming next: Collabs, new products, and a few things they can barely talk about yet

This is the most behind-the-scenes episode they've done. If you're a founder, a builder, or someone who's been following Hulken and wondered how the machine runs, this one is for you.

New episodes of Unfinished Business drop every week. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and follow along at @unfinishedbizpodcast.