Chrisi Hammer - The Interior Designer Scaling Cinnamon Buns Into 4500+ Doors

welcome to shelf help Today we're speaking
with Chrissy Hammer Co Founder
CEO of Sunshine Buns the cinnamon roll brand built on
a 40 year old family
recipe that I believe is on track to be in
close to forty five hundred doors by year end
Sunshine Buns was started with with Chrissy's mom
baking buns I think for church
fundraisers and community events in in California
and then Chris and your friend eventually turned the
recipe into a business think fall of 2022
with some home baking and just deliveries
out of Chrissy's kitchen
eventually opening up a brick and mortar location in
2024 and I
think kind of the rest is history
from there but we'll definitely
dive into the journey a bit more here in a second so yeah
super excited to dive
into it Chrissy just yeah first off for listeners that
aren't as familiar with the sunshine buns
would love to just get quick lay of the land
just in terms of kind of the origin story
why behind the brand
core products in the lineup and then
we'll take it from there
for sure well first of all I was telling
for the listeners I was telling Adam before he pushed
record that Shelf Help is one of my favorite podcasts
ever in existence
so if this is the first year hearing of it do yourself
a really quick favor and download
and listen to every single episode
it's fantastic I was really pumped
when I got the DM on LinkedIn
hey you wanna be on the pod I'm like of course I do
so super pumped
about it so anyway you're doing a great job
origin story of sunshine buns
started back in 1978 so before I was born
my mom she's sort of like a Martha Stewart
there's like nothing that she can't do well from a homemaking
standpoint she is like
the picture perfect boomer homemaker she is
so fantastic in the home so everything she makes
in the kitchen is so fantastic so she had her first
experience
with the cinnamon roll actually in Salt Lake City
when she was traveling with my dad back in the 1970s
just a quick tidbit
history of cinnamon rolls is they're not
huge in the United States until about the 1970s
so it was sort of like
if you saw one it was sort of a rare
thing and then Cinnabon exploded in the 80s
but before that it was sort of like what is this
so that that's an interesting tidbit so
she had her first cinnamon roll she couldn't believe it
she was like this is so good went home and took about five years
to develop like a really really good dough
she was like I'm going to master this
this is gonna be the thing that I'm
I do and I do well and I'm gonna own it and
her and her best friend
started selling them for fundraising
events and local charities anytime
someone needed money my mom
was like I'm going to sell sunshine buns
and give it back to the community so it's a really cool
you know full of heart start sort of origin that
I'm not full of heart this is a for profit business
at this point but
that was kind of the origin of it and
you know they had come up with the idea of Sunshine
Buns back in the 1970s and when we were deciding
if we were going to keep that name or not it was like absolutely
we'll keep that name it's fantastic it's got
great origin
and so much that you can do with the branding there so
that's sort of the origin around sunshine buns and then
for about 10 years I wanted to turn this into a business
I had my own interior design business
that I was doing at the same time so it wasn't really a good time
and then
one day I'm with my best friend we're on a double date
and my husband and her and her husband and we were like
can you believe Mima doesn't want to do a business
because she's so marketable that I'm
always I'm like what could I sell that my mom does
and I just couldn't believe that she didn't want to turn it into a business
with me because I had approached her and she's like absolutely
not zero interested in creating any sort of brand
or business or anything like that she's
was approaching 80 and was like not interested
so I was griping with my friends about it and
I it was sort of like I looked at Cass and Cass
looked at me and we were
outside this theater before a play and
and it was this cosmic moment where we were like
we're gonna do this
and our husbands are rolling their eyes
and we're like okay let's do this now she has no
idea how to bake she comes from an
entirely different home than I do you know working mom
not baking in the kitchen she has no idea how to bake
but she's like yes I'm in let's start a cinnamon
roll company and right then and there in the parking
lot we bought the Godaddy site for $33
we opened up the Instagram page
and we told our husbands you have
six days to get the back end in order
cause we're gonna start selling these from our house
that's exactly what we did
so it's pretty cool you know fast forward to today
we're currently in about 750 doors
and as you said we're gonna be in about 45 hundred doors
by the end of this year which is absolutely insane
some of our most recent wins are Town and Country
in the Pacific Northwest Albertsons United out of Texas
Lund and Byerly's in the Midwest
and then some big national retailers
so you'll pretty much be able to get your hands
on them everywhere by the end of the year
your mom like five years
I'm sure it was kind of a slow
methodical thing of kind of developing the dough
but in terms of
remining back to some of those early days of of taking
the recipe from that home kitchen to
more commercial scale production
what were some of those kind of key
variables and things you you played
around with in terms of from that first version
to you feel like okay this is a version that we feel like we can actually bring to
commercial scale and start producing
methodical as you said in making
sure that this was a as simple as possible and b
could freeze really well
so those were two things that we were lucky
enough to sort of just
already be adopted into the business when we
you know people spend
years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in R&D
and I had had four years already of my mom
really perfecting this recipe
and then another element is that you
touched on this briefly and
and I know we'll get into it more is that we opened up a brick and
mortar where we live locally so
we didn't go just straight from like home kitchen right
to co pack we went home kitchen
to commercial kitchen to co pack so it was really lucky
that we were able to do small tweaks
to get to commercial
and then from commercial to copack
again a couple small tweaks so really
the majority of the tweaking
that took place was from home to commercial
and there was so much freedom in that because we had our own location
so like hundreds of hours we were able to spend
in our retail location really perfecting
the commercial side before
we took that to a copack of course
you don't have that luxury when you're going usually
when you're going to a copack you're not like hey
can I work on this for three months like that's right
typically not something that you're able to do so
yeah I know we'll get into that a little bit more but
the tweaking happened sort of incrementally
as we moved through this business and my mom is still
alive and very much a part of this business I'm
sure she's kicking herself
cause she doesn't have any equity of course we'll take care of her but
my mom spends so much time
in both the brick and mortar and at the co packers
she is constantly there like helping
quality control and having them understand
like what's acceptable and what's not
yeah and so that's that's really critical
is to have like the actual expert
working on it day in and day out yeah totally
is like one of the the keys like
that
important texture
as you've gone up from that home kitchen
to commercial to co packing scale
yeah bread is so interesting especially baked
cinnamon rolls it's a double it's a double rise
so when you make your dough it has to rise
and then you roll your dough and it has to rise
and then it's essentially rising
again in the oven so it's almost like
three rises so it's very very very finicky like
it's all about chemistry and balance
and fermentation and heat and
and again we're so lucky that we had
40 years my mom can essentially do this in her sleep
really understanding the science
behind it and making sure that what she produced
you know in the 90s and 2 and 80s
was the same thing that we were gonna get out of the kitchen
and it really was like
hours after hours after hours
of like making sure that it's exactly
perfect and from a from like a secret
standpoint I don't actually know my mom
will always be like
you know we'll say like oh we don't want to give the
recipe
away and she's like why you should tape it on the back
they're not going to be able to do it because
so it is so filled with like gut instinct
and if you've ever made cinnamon rolls at home
I'm sure unless you're like an expert
nine times out of 10 it's like
that wasn't what I wanted it to be we really
have this like true expert in our pocket
and that's kind of our secret
sauce as Mima I wish everyone had a Mima
in their business'cause she's so critical but
what were some of the you know key variables
that were top of mind for you as you were building out the
brand identity positioning voice
look and feel the brand I
I have an interior design background and I think that
has been super critical in our success for the brand
although it's not like packaging design
when you're designing
you know a 15,000 square foot home
it has to be so cohesive even down to like the door
stops I'm choosing the door stops and like
the window trim and
all these things that are like people don't understand
how complex interior design is and so
I was really able to understand
that design isn't just like
this one element but it's really like an
entire universe totally and I you know
when we were originally
coming up with the concept of the font
and the design and everything
we wanted it to feel nostalgic
because that's what a cinnamon roll
at its heart really is like it's Mima's
recipe we want it to feel like it's coming from
you know the the 1970s
but we also wanted a modern twist on it so it was
really about pairing modern with retro
and like making sure that that was a great
marriage between the two and again
I have so much patience in understanding like
slight tweaks and variations
in that because of my design background
that I was able to articulate
well what was in my brain
to our designers and I think that's
kind of a hard part that founders
you can see it in your brain but you're like how do I
articulate exactly
what I want this to look like and I think
we're lucky that I have this background
and we purposely didn't choose
someone that has designed CPG packaging like I was like
I don't want this to look like every other thing that's on the shelf
and so I'm not going to choose someone
that has designed
a million packages I mean unless it was Red Heart
but we didn't have so we he's pretty awesome so
I was like I'm not going to do that I want this to really
be very different and that's kind of been our
entire brand identity
from the beginning is like how can we make this
feel different from like Pillsbury or Annie's yeah
and then when we originally
went to market it was very much like the retailers
didn't know where to put us because
traditionally speaking a cinnamon
roll has never been fully baked
before in the grocery store
from you know you can get that in the deli but not
not in the actual right packaged branded spot
yeah and so I think that they thought that we were a bread
and so we originally followed the bread
brands which are in bags
so we go to market in in bread bags and took
you know a really long time to develop the bag and it was so
stinking cute and then we went to Expo
and all the big box retailers
are like you're not a bread you're a breakfast
and this needs to fit in the breakfast sets
so hurry and go home
and redo this entire packaging to represent
a waffle box that will fit easier in our shelves so
you know that was kind of the
the reasoning behind the rebrand yeah was from
go to bread to the breakfast set you know that's all
and I think we've we finally
are in the packaging that that we need to be in
that new look in form factor with
still maintaining some of that existing look so the
existing fans and customers
when they were walking down the aisle you know 1 could
feel like it resonated with them still felt
familiar and 2 could actually was
was familiar enough that they could actually
you know immediately be able to
continue to recognize it and know what they're looking for so they don't
get lost in the aisle and say where'd sunshine buns go
absolutely yeah I think the imaging is super critical
like if you're going through a rebrand
you and it's a I mean it's a completely different
like you said it's a completely different pack
we went from bags to boxes and so Evan
our graphic designer
was like I need to keep this as cohesive
as it was you know I need people to understand
immediately like oh this is Sunshine
Buds it's just in a different pack and I think
the way that we came about was
making sure that the hero image
was the same from bag to box
you know I know some people
redo their hero image and that costs
you know like Tropicana that literally
tanked their entire business because they
changed their hero image
of course we're not like as far
down the road as Tropicana so it wasn't as
critical but Evan was really
you know his task was really like how do I make this
feel so different
and fun and fresh and unique and different in the breakfast
set yeah and still maintain that Sunshine Buns
ethos and I think by
really keeping the hero product as large and big
as powerful as the bag in the box that was sort of
and then everything
sort of just fell into place from there and we
were really
um intentional in making it as simple as possible
like there's not a million call outs on the bag
you know we were like
no oven required ready in 45 seconds
and then the hero image you know like I really
took into like what speaks to me as a consumer
and how can I I think
founders like really overcomplicated it
it needs to be beautiful packaging
it needs to say what it is through an image
and then there needs to be very few like call outs you
know especially in the freezer you've got like a split
second totally
to to capture that person so
I mean our our buns have naturally 8 grams of
protein in them and we were
people have been like why didn't you put that
on there and sure
I don't like um it's not a better for you product
and I think too many too many like CPG brands
are like oh we're better
for you because we have eight grams of protein
you're not better for me
too many people get lost in the trend of that
where it's like what do you do what do you do well
and call that out we
yeah we do convenience well and we do product well so
those are the two things it was like call out convenience
and show what the product is and they'll
turn it around and see like oh there's eight grams of
proteins how how fun you know totally so yeah
that are you know maybe a year
that are listening thinking back going through this
what's like one thing you might tell
them to keep top of mind that
that could help them I don't know do it better or avoid
some of the pitfalls and things that you might have
stumbled into
I think really
understanding
like I had said previously
how to keep it as simple as possible
and don't go to market with
living in multiple places within the grocery store
go to market with one location
own that location that real estate
develop skills from that spot
and then as you can see the velocity and sell
through rate of that real estate that you own
then talk about you know bringing other skis
to market we were super intentional we have
12 flavors which I know we're gonna get into
we only went to market with two we're just now introducing our third
one of the
national retailers gets a limited time offer
so that's gonna be our fourth
and we didn't rush immediately to 12 skews
yeah and we have some that can live in dessert
some that can live in breakfast
some that can live in bread
and we have like a bread pudding
where does that go it's not in breakfast
that's in dessert but we don't want
we don't want to stretch ourselves too thin
from a real estate perspective
until people are like I know sunshine buns and that way
you know a year from now when they're walking in target
and they're like oh my gosh they have a bread
pudding in the dessert
that's gonna slap cause I know their buns slap so
totally it's like keep it simple
own one or two skews in your real estate
print out your packaging and go and freaking tape it to
an ego box if you're in the breakfast set or
like a if you're in the ravioli set go
tape it to Bertoli like go tape it to where you are
because what you think looks good on the computer
maybe doesn't actually look good in in real time that's
another thing I've Learned about interior design like
you have to be able to test your flooring in
nine different spots of the house before you commit to a flooring
and it's the same with brand packaging
like yeah it's so it's so visual
you have to make sure that it looks good
in the right set totally
when you're going to to retail
what did your kind of strategy process
retail price was was gonna be
I think because we're in this white space
that has potential to you know the break
the frozen breakfast set is
worth billions and billions and billions of dollars
so I think you have to have like a 50,000 foot
view of what your category is like if you're selling
kitty cat
balls that go around their collar
it's probably not going to be as impactful
as a company that's selling frozen cinnamon rolls
right like so you you have to have that first okay like
can this be potentially
national and can it be potentially
take a little market share out of the billions
and not millions and you're like okay yes it can great
now you're like if I'm going to be
competing with brands like ego and Annie's
and Pillsbury I need to have a market price that Susan
in Kansas will pay for and Marlene in LA
will pay for it you know two totally
different people but can they both
pay for it will they both pay for it
okay so you've answered both those questions
yes I need that then it's what is my gross margin
well I would like it to be 30%
it's not going to be 30% if I need to hit all of those things if I'm gonna take market
share from ego
if I want Susan and Marlene both to buy it
and if I want I'm not going to be able to get my gross
margin on that so
I think when we first started we really had no
idea and when we went to market we were like 1299
because I was like I've got to hit my margin and then
once we signed
our broker which will get into Critical Mass Group Dan
Morad if you don't know him and if you haven't
met him you should know Dan he's fantastic he's
he's the founder
of Critical Mass Group and he also has a fund
called turpsie
they've they've uh invest in in uh CPG brands but he
really sat down with us and was like if you want this if you wanna take market share
you have to be at the price that everyone
could get you at and so he really kind of reverse
engineered for us and was like
you have to be in the volume game
and you're not gonna get there if you're priced at 1299
so he was like trust me you're going to get volume
because you are in this white space that does
you know I hate the word like disruptive cause
that is exactly what this is but this is such a
like everyone knows what a cinnamon
roll is we're just giving it we just
solved a problem like getting it to them faster
than they would so anyway he said you don't know how
bad you're getting taken advantage of from like freight
and packaging and co packs like
you're just a new brand you don't understand
but the volume is gonna get you in a spot of leverage
where you can really like say listen
this isn't a story about like can you do 50,000 buns
it's like
I'm going to make hundreds of millions of buns
how do you fit into this you know and I think
you can't get to that unless you're priced
in a way where
people can afford you and it will fly off the shelf
so I think some people spend
too much money or too much time worrying about gross
margin
off the bat like you're not ever going to hit your gross
margin at least in frozen
there's just no way you're gonna hit that gross margin
I I don't know anyone that would hit that
when you're talking about a strategic acquisition
which is what we want to accomplish in five six seven years
we're not going to be at the margin that we want
at acquisition right now so how can we get of course
is through like velocity and volume so I think
we started
high and then we had that conversation with Dan
and he's like let's get this to mass price
and that was really how we came to that
and I don't listen to anyone else that tells me that
we need to be hitting our gross margin right now
cause yeah that totally makes sense
side of things then you launched initially kind of
you eventually open up the the physical
storefront in in Aurora the brick and mortar
location I think is in August 2024
what was kind of the thought process of opening
until you're ready to jump to
yeah when we originally started
we were baking out of our house
and I know I touched on this a little bit but
baking cinnamon rolls
in residential kitchens is really difficult
commercial commercial kitchens have way more ability
to to bake and bake quickly
especially a cinnamon roll you know they have like
proofers
those are things that we don't have in our homes
so you know we're spending
six to eight hours a day baking 18 dozen
cinnamon rolls we're at the shop that would take
that takes an hour you know so being able to
say like okay we can't sustain this anymore
I have a business
my founder my co founder had a business
like we just couldn't
keep up with the demand in the scale it was like
we would sell out and the orders
had to be in by two and you know it was just way too complicated
yeah because when we originally started this business
we were gonna go the franchise route
and it wasn't until we open the doors
that we started having people request
why isn't this in the grocery store or people
gas stations
local gas stations saying hey I want this in wholesale
and we're like oh my gosh
this should be in grocery stores this would be so much
easier to scale quickly
if we went that route I mean easier
in air quotes cause it's freaking
hard nothing is easy but yeah yeah but yeah but easier
than opening
you know like if we're gonna be in 4,000 doors
by the end of this year there's no way we would have been able to open up 4,000 locations
right in less than two years so
right having that unlock we'd already
signed the lease we already had the kitchen
and then it just became like oh my gosh
this is now like our R&D we still you know we have a
business
like every single day people can walk in they get the fresh we do catering
and you know collegiate
sponsorships and we're with Real Salt Lake
you know there's a lot that we do from the first
store but it wasn't it so sort of all accidental
you know like let's get into a commercial kitchen
so that it's easier to
then it is at home then we got in the commercial kitchen
and it was like
this is so much easier than at home and then it was
crap let's go wholesale let's
literally redo our entire business
and then it became more of an R&D
it's really great because we own this data
from like real time customers that come in
every day yeah and we're able to pressure test
different skews you know like
how well does this flavor do with these consumers so
we have immediate
data that we're able to take to the retailers
and say listen this does the best in the store
it's probably gonna do the best in retail
so that was really helpful yeah was in terms of
handful more of kind of these flagship
ones in key locations or eventually just absolutely
okay I think it's
you know Cinnabon is sort of the only
cinnamon roll company out there that's in mass
and they're awesome what they built was great
and this is no shade to Cinnabon but I think
the market could use a little bit something different
and so I think our philosophy going into
having more corporate stores is sort of following
what Cinnabon has done
you know high traffic areas like airports and malls
where they're sort of trapped
and they smell that cinnamon roll and they're like
I have to get a cinnamon roll and then
we will do locations
that make sense you know Manhattan Vegas
places like that where it does make sense but that's
way down the road
once we've really captured the hearts of America
and that when we
we feel confident that when we open it they're gonna be like
we know exactly
that this is gonna do well on this market
because it has you know from the retail perspective
jumping forward a little bit into the retail
side of things you mentioned you guys
decided to just launch with the two skis versus
the 12 of brick and
mortar which totally makes sense it's from inventory
planning perspective
inventory risk perspective which is a lot less complex
of some of those initial meetings of buyers
and how you're kind of
continuing to position the brand I think you know
standing next to some of these other
our biggest feature because a cinnamon roll
like you can make a Pillsbury
cinnamon roll and it's freaking good so it's not like
they're terrible they're good I think
they could be better and I think our cinnamon rolls
our are better they are better than what's currently
in the retail landscape um
and in addition to that it is convenient
we are truly the first that's fully baked
that you don't have to use an oven like I
you know I know Roro's
and I think she was on your show yeah they're awesome
and they've got this
awesome product and it's so delicious
but it still does require an oven
and it's not single serve so we were like what Smuckers
did for PB and J we wanna do for cinnamon rolls so
they're individually wrapped they're in a box
they can thaw on shelf
you can have one at a time you can have one in under a minute
like it speaks across generations
and it speaks across convenience
so I think that is our biggest
convenience is absolutely king especially
in today's day and age like so
so many people are just don't know even use their oven
they're like I can't I'm not using my oven like I don't
I don't want to turn this on you know so
and if you want a cinnamon roll it's like I either
have to get in my car and drive to my local bakery
which I'm sure has incredible cinnamon rolls
or I have to sit here and bake this for like an hour or two hours
and we were like that is a problem
like if you want a cinnamon roll
everyone else has made getting indulgent treats
accessible why is this not accessible so
that was really our bread and butter as
convenience and and product it's really delicious
in the process of growing and are launching a new brand
into the frozen aisle within
retail what's like one thing you tell them to
keep top of mind
just hold on
it's frozen is so hard yeah but it's such an untapped
you know I know you've had like some serious
frozen people on here frozen is hot right now
yeah like people are like
wait we kind of forgot about the freezer aisle but it
holds inventory it's not a big space
like it's really and you are competing
I think yesterday I was at Smith's
and ego has four doors
in the front 4 1 2 3 4 in my local Smith's
I'm like that is
why why is ego owning so much of the breakfast
set because people are afraid to get into frozen
and I think
it is challenging
but I always say like if you can if you can
beat the challenge then the
you know the point of entry is so difficult
that people just don't
go in the space they're like frozen so hard
I'm not gonna tackle that I'm not gonna
worry about logistics and freight and right you know
cold chain cold chain is no problem yeah like it's
so hard but if you can nail it oh my gosh it's just
begging to be reinvented
right now and I think you know with Rippy and smearcase
and Frozen One and Fruit Riot and Evergreen
and I mean there's just so many brands
right now that are reimagining
what frozen could be that it's like
yeah it's such a fun time so if you can do it
you should do it just know
don't be defeated because it's very easily to get
you know have a defeated mindset it's
yeah a tackle one day at a time
you know one step at a time yeah
what's you finding having the most
impact in terms of what's resonating
most of people actually have an impact from driving
you know incremental foot back to your
yeah what do you feel like is having the biggest impact
right now well I think
LinkedIn is like a really
slept on platform and I'm not exactly
sure why not every founders on LinkedIn posting
every single day I have made such great connections
on LinkedIn and I
am very much leaning into like I'm very open
what you see is what you get and I'm
just giving it all on LinkedIn like this freaking
sucked this was freaking cool go freaking
buy the buns and I think that has made an impact
you know from buyers and retailers
like they're on LinkedIn and they watch and they listen
and they're observing what the brands are doing
and then from like a retail consumer we're
huge on Instagram we just barely started on TikTok
we need to get better on that
and then we've partnered with
a ton of influencers and I think
my co founder
has half a million followers on Instagram so that we
are in a good spot
because she has such a great audience
now that being said it's not it's a really
international audience she's was in Zumba headquarters
corporate for years and years and years so she has
not necessarily like buying
people so many people in Brazil and
Europe and Asia they're not really in the US
but it really we do understand
because she is an influencer
like how to market that and in addition to that
we've partnered
with hummingbirds and I don't know if you're familiar
with them but they I definitely heard of them for sure
they're amazing they have like a their business
works on micro and macro influencers which I think
you need to really understand
in today's landscape is that like
sometimes you can work with
you know and I know this from
interior design I would work with influencers that had
half a million followers and I would get no
customers from that because
they have built this
it's so big that they don't have like loyal
customers where I think micro and
micro influencers with 5,000 10,000 followers are
their communities are so invested in them
totally that they have huge return
yeah and so hummingbirds works with these types of
these types of influencers all across the country
and so when we're opening up a new market
we open up a hummingbird campaign and they go and they
shoot
content we own the content we repurpose the content so
working in your brand
right voice through Instagram and TikTok
is vital but it's
that it's only gonna take you so far you need
people to be out there buying your product
showing that they're buying your product
how they use their product
how they taste their product and
and that can't be you have to go in
with a social strategy and we're very much like
all in on social on every platform totally
expo what what impact did it have on you what's
looking back now what do you feel like
what LED you to have so much success there this year
yeah I mean it really started with Fancy Fair
in January we launched okay November
retail November of 2025 so this is like we're new
and it was our first show
and back to me being an interior designer I was like
I'll be damned if I show up on a floor
with like a piece of plastic
I just I could I was like no way
so my husband and another contractor
built our whole booth it weighs 30 five hundred pounds
it's not like I don't know if you've seen it but it's not light
and it's like
it looks like a home like a like an actual storefront
yeah and I was like I care about color
I care about saturation I care about light fixture
like those are things that I really care about
just because I'm an interior designer so
when I brought this booth
to Fancy Fair I don't think that I understood
how impactful our booth was gonna be
because I just assumed like
I've never been to a show before so I just
thought right
this is what people do they have beautiful booths
you know I was on Pinterest and I'm like these aren't
super great but I can do it myself
so you know we yeah create
this big booth and we brought it and I Adam it was so
so crazy like five six seven layers
deep of people like what is this you know it's like
bright and pink and beautiful and orange and blue and
we're a new brand
but we were acting like we were a legacy brand
because of how we showed up with these materials
and it's not like they were incredibly expensive
you know people came up to me and they're like
who designed your booth I'm like I did but
I encourage you to find like a local interior designer
that will maybe give you something different than like
a creatives briefs designer yeah totally
and then even looking into you know so Expo went and
we got a 20 by 10 space
instead of a 10 by 10 space we brought
seven other women we called ourselves the Bun
Babes like I was really intentional I
it's like I created a creative brief
before I sent it to our graphics team like
this is the story we're telling at Expo West
Mima's gonna come she's gonna have her own chair
there's neon signs like I spent
hours weeks days months like yeah
building this universe at Expo West that goes beyond
just like a 10 by 20 or 10 by 10 space and I think
founders should really be looking at that
time as like how can I get the buyers to like
think about me after they leave the show
instead of just five seconds
after they walk past my booth
yeah and that is through a story
and it has to encapsulate so much more than just
the product
and the founder it needs to be down to your shoes
like everything has to be telling a story and I think
that's sort of
something we've done and done well is create stories
through the show and then
you know looking in and people will say well that's not realistic
you can't drive like a 3,000 pound you're right so
fancy fairs coming up in New York we have an entirely
new concept but it
it is so fun I can't wait to show it on on LinkedIn
Instagram but it's not like what everybody
else has but it is portable and it costs
probably less than what others
are spending on again the plastic click
you just need to think
outside the box and be really creative
and I would tap into
people that design space outside of just CPG
you know like really
utilize local contractors like hey what
what what looks like MDF but is actual foam right
the creative agencies that are building these booths
don't necessarily like it's all IKEA type click and
clack whatever so
tapping into like outside resources is super vital and
making sure that you are telling
a freaking story when you go
COO team is obviously growing you're
gonna be in almost $5,000
by the end of the year totally makes sense
two big hires and
what are you thinking about
yeah Critical Mass Group was our sales team they're
national so they're incredible
they're really exclusive they only have 45 brands
but they sell about like two and a half billion
so they're they have some really impressive brands
under their banner and that means
your product is gonna move and it's gonna move fast
so you know we did a fundraiser
in October of last year before we launched
retail and we thought oh my gosh
$1.6 million that's so much money and it is
and it got as far but when you're talking frozen
when you're talking about national
we could spend $1.6 million on the target rollout alone
let alone true Costco Kroger
unify K he the thousands of doors across the country
that we're gonna be in it's really expensive so
Critical Mass came on you know January
huge success after fancy Fair Expo West was wild
you know national meetings
everyone wants us unify KH fully on board
and then it's like
holy crap we need so much more money
than what we thought we needed
so we need to be able to tell a financial story that
articulates exactly what we need and unfortunately
none of us possess that
and so at Expo West we were approached by a group
his name is Bill he's with Everest
and they have financial services
and he was the CFO at General Mills
and so he was like I know exactly
what you guys need I'm super interested
wanna come on board fractionally
cause there's absolutely no way we could afford
him other than that sure so he took over
that element and then he was like you need an operator
that understands scale so we found
um Dalen he's local out of Utah he was like No.
10 at trigger and No. 30 at Skullcandy
so came in and like operationally
exploded both of those brands
but I think what's really great
and what founders should be doing when they're hiring
super important people like this
across sales operations and financials
is that when you say I wanna sell my company
to a strategic for hundreds of millions of dollars
and you're a new brand
and they shake their heads and say yeah that's
I can see that that's a great that's a great
beginning of the conversation
if you're having conversations with other people
with these people and they're like slow down you don't know what you're doing
you know that's too big of a goal
those people aren't gonna be the ones that can take you to 50 million
hundred million hundred and fifty million in revenue
so I think making sure that you're aligned
cause we had plenty of conversations
with people that are like you guys are you have no
idea what you're doing this isn't going to scale
to that and we're like okay those aren't the right partners
for us but yeah Critical Mass Group and Bill and Dalen
were all in alignment on like yeah this
this has that potential how can we get the revenue
and build the business around
that goal in mind and I think
it sort of evolved from there
we were intentional in hiring people
that didn't weren't just going to get us to 2 million
five 10 but that could get us to 100 and I would
I would encourage founders to be looking
for fractional people at that stage
because they're going to come from these big banners
and brands that have deep
understanding of how to operate at that level
even early on like spend
money on these guys they're gonna be
more expensive than you wanna spend but
so critical in getting you to that next spot totally
to close it Chrissy what's
what's the best place for people to fall along with
with you and all all your expertise and everything
you're learning
on a day to day basis building this brand and then
best place for people to fall
along with with the brand these days as well
yeah for sure follow us on TikTok
cause we're trying to get back
bigger perfect on there we're just tiny but are a ton
ton of socials
on Instagram and it's just sunshine buns
on Instagram and then TikTok same sunshine buns
and then as far as following
me you can follow my Instagram
that's Chrissy Hammer I'm not
I don't post as much on there as I do on LinkedIn
now LinkedIn you want the ins and outs
I'm giving you the good the bad the dirty the ugly
the beautiful it's all on LinkedIn
I post every single day
so you can find me there just Chrissy Hammer and
that's us
you can find us you can find our hot buns anywhere
awesome love it thanks Chrissy
yeah she was really
you've kind of uncovered to be able to make sure that you can kind of maintain
yeah of course luckily
how did you balance yeah need for kind of that
or so behind you that are
look like for nailing down what your go to market
in terms of the go to market
delivery model out of your kitchen but then
the the storefront versus
I don't know two or three
like you called out the pillsburys and what not
for some other founders that are
from a marketing perspective
foot traffic to your retail partners like
but people should look at the hummingbirds
you guys recently hired a CFO
the next kind of big hires and where the team needs to go from here

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