Katlin Smith
Founder and Advisor, Simple Mills. On 2 shows, 3 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutivesimplemills.com ↗
Katlin Smith founded Simple Mills in 2012, developing clean-ingredient, grain-free baking mixes, crackers, and snacks that expanded into more than 30,000 retail stores nationwide. She built the brand into an industry leader in the natural food category before orchestrating its sale to Flowers Foods for nearly $800 million.
2shows
3appearances
38statements
6resolved
4supported
2contradicted
67%fully supported
Everything Katlin Smith said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Smith: Simple Mills was named after $3,000 domain price blocked 'Simple Foods'
“At first, I wanted to name it Simple Foods, and I went out and searched the domain name for that, and it was 3000 dollars, and I couldn't afford that. So I was like, okay, what's better than Simple Foods, and came up with Simple Mills, and the domain name for …”
Whole Foods' first Simple Mills order was just 12 muffin mix bags
“And then they placed their first PO three months later. And that PO is something like two cases of muffin mix, which would be 12 units.”
Smith spent roughly $200 on kitchen rent in first six months
“I think across the first six months of manufacturing the product, I probably only spent 200 dollars on the kitchen.”
Katlin Smith: Danielle Walker's Facebook post sold out Simple Mills in an hour
“I think it was more focused on the retail path, but a few months later, a influencer, what's now called an influencer, discovered the product and wrote about it on her Facebook page, which just kind of astounded me, and we sold out of the product in probably a…”
Smith: Parents Mortgaged Their House to Loan Simple Mills $200k
“And my parents mortgaged the house to give me that money. They pulled 200,000 dollars, and they're not wealthy.”
Early Simple Mills investment thesis was becoming the next Betty Crocker
“Since I started the company, I did always see expanding into other areas, but the investment thesis was largely based around being the next Betty Crocker.”
Simple Mills entered crackers after founder baked them from cake mix
“We thought about cereal, but we ended up going into crackers actually after I took our Cake mix home, and for whatever reason, decided to make crackers out of it and put it in my oven. And I brought them in the next day, and all of us sat around and said that'…”
Smith pitched Whole Foods buyers by showing up unannounced with muffins
“So I came up with this plan where we would go to every Whole Foods region, and we would email them the day before and say, I'm going to be in your regional office. I'm going to bring you baked muffins. Please, please, please meet with me for five minutes. I ca…”
Smith: Simple Mills took four months to enter its first Whole Foods
“Getting into Whole Foods at the time took, Four months just to get into that one store.”
Smith sold her car and maxed credit cards to fund Simple Mills
“I definitely had to do some very creative things on my own side to fund the business. So selling my car and maxing out credit cards and crazy things like that.”
Smith: Initial market research was tracking almond flour at Whole Foods
“I think the one piece of market research that I did do is I watched the turns of almond flour at my local Whole Foods store. So I watched that it was almost always sold out. And so I could tell people were buying it.”
Smith mixed Simple Mills powders by rolling barrels across countertops
“I couldn't afford a mixer, which, It costs 2000 dollars, so I had defined this idea to put all of the powders into these food grade barrels, and then I would roll them back and forth across the countertop to mix them together.”
Smith invested $70,000 of personal savings and sold car for Simple Mills
“I mean, before it was all said and done, I put all my savings, which was about 70,000 dollars in it. I sold my car.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Katlin's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 HOW I BUILT THISLEDGER | Founder and Advisor, Simple Mills | 2 | 26 | 33% 1/3 | full record on How I Built This → |
 MASTERS OF SCALELEDGER | Founder and Advisor, Simple Mills | 1 | 12 | 100% 3/3 | full record on Masters of Scale → |