Pete Maldonado
Co-founder & Co-CEO, Chomps. On 2 shows, 5 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveLinkedIn ↗chomps.com ↗
Pete Maldonado is best known for co-founding Chomps in 2012, building it from a bootstrapped, direct-to-consumer meat-stick company into a major snack brand. Alongside co-founder Rashid Ali, he scaled the business into nationwide retail distribution across tens of thousands of stores, including Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and Target.
2shows
5appearances
30statements
5resolved
2supported
1contradicted
40%fully supported
3said about them ↓ Everything Pete Maldonado said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Maldonado: Most retailers make more from slotting fees than product sales
“And these, you know, retailers, most of them, they make more, more money from slotting fees than they do from actually selling products.”
Maldonado: Door-to-door selling is the best route for early food startups
“Knocking on doors is going to be your best bet. Like hands down. I mean, if I could scale that with what I do, I would do that all day long. Cause I'm going to get the sale, man, every time.”
Maldonado: Shift toward higher protein intake is permanent, not a fad
“People are changing the way they're dieting and eating, and they're educating themselves, and that's not going away, right?”
Maldonado: Co-founder Rashid Ali stayed part-time until Chomps hit $20M revenue
“I went full-time first. I think we were doing in like the four or 500,000 range, and then Rasheed didn't come on until we were doing like twenty million. So it was a big, like, big gap.”
Maldonado: Building a DTC community first drives downstream retail velocity
“That's also why we're so successful in retail is all of that foundation that we laid in the DTC world, building that community, building a loyal following, and it was just, you know, it's brick by brick, right? It's one person at a time.”
Maldonado: Chomps launched at Trader Joe's selling 360 units weekly per store
“So like a good retailer would do, you know, like now, like you know, like a health food store, like a whole foods or whoever might do like 15, 20, 30 units per store per week. We came out of the gates doing 360 units per store per week of this product. That's …”
Maldonado: Chomps raised under $700,000 in primary capital before 2021 PE deal
“A total of less than 700,000. And over the course of like the two year period that we were, Working with them. ... So we, you know, even to this day, we've only, that's all the primary, primary capital's ever taken. Even aside from, we did a private equity rai…”
Maldonado: The most crucial PE diligence step is meeting operating partners
“The biggest thing you could do with a private equity partner is meeting the operating partners that are going to be the ones that are supposed to be helping drive value.”
Maldonado: Getting onto retail shelves is easy compared to post-launch execution
“You selling to the retailer and getting out on the shelf is the easy part. That's when the work starts.”
Maldonado: Single-unit owner-operator franchises have a higher chance of success
“If you're going to franchise, it should be that person's day job. I think that's probably critical to the success of any franchise. If you look at like the Chick-fil-A model where they allow, allow them to Own one unit. I think that's a really, that's a good, …”
Maldonado: Chomps is approaching $500M in retail sales in 2024
“We'll do somewhere around the, we're approaching the half a billion dollar mark in retail sales this year.”
Maldonado: CPG startups must target incremental customers, not incumbent giants
“I still would never even think about trying to compete with the big guys in the space. Right. It just, it doesn't work. And I would, we would, they would bleed us to death. Like it just wouldn't work. But the reason we've been successful is because we serve an…”
Maldonado: Chomps rejected Trader Joe's private-label deal to avoid managing two brands
“The specific ask, you know, they wanted us to do a private label product line firm, which would have been a huge undertaking for a small team like ours. It was just me and Rashid working full time, and it was hard enough to manage one brand, and as a private, …”
Maldonado: Emerging premium CPG brands should not compete on retail price
“With this type of product, one of the other things when you go into retail, don't fall into the trap of trying to compete on price. You are going to be the little guy coming into the space, lean into your story, lean into the premium aspects of the products an…”
Maldonado: Trader Joe's first Chomps PO was for 1.1 million sticks
“It was. 1.1 million sticks. And you know, when we saw that first PO, like that's where I was like, this is it. This is what's going to put us on the radar. It's going to change everything. And it was larger than the previous year altogether in a single PO.”
Maldonado: Chomps exceeded $100 million in revenue
“We're going to be exceeding the, we have exceeded that, that nine figure range of revenue.”
Maldonado: CPG founders must pitch retail buyers on incrementality, not cannibalization
“One of the stories that, that Rashid and I were able to get with chomps, it was from the data that we had was incrementality, meaning we're bringing new customers to the set. You need to be able to find a way to tell that story to the buyer, because they need …”
Maldonado: Chomps once received a single purchase order for 1.1 million sticks
“1.1 million sticks. And it was larger than the previous year altogether in a single PO.”
Maldonado: Chomps and Western Smokehouse are building a 300,000-square-foot joint facility
“And then we've stumbled on Kevin Western from Western Smokehouse, which is you know, one of, is our first co-packer, but now we've, we have, was it four plants now with them? And we're doing the big JV in Mexico, Missouri on a pretty massive plant, a 300,000 s…”
Maldonado: Trader Joe's placed an initial order of 1.1 million Chomps sticks
“It was a 1.1 million sticks, I believe.”
Maldonado: Search Trends for Grass-Fed Beef and Keto Saw Hockey-Stick Growth
“So I started using these tools and looking at grass fed, like the search terms for grass fed beef delivered, any type of search term that was all related to that. So paleo, keto, all of those. And every single one of these search terms were just like an absolu…”
Maldonado: Chomps found co-packers by tracing USDA legends on competitor packaging
“Each one of these meat sticks has the USDA legend on there. So we had a whole list of people to contact. And then we found one specific one in Missouri, in this very small farm town called Green Top, Missouri”
Maldonado: Chomps still uses its original beef stick recipe today
“We landed on that original stick recipe that is the same exact recipe we use today, and it only took us a few tries.”
The other half of the tape: Pete Maldonado's own voice is left out of every number here. 3 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Statements about Pete Maldonado, by other people (3)
Ali matched Maldonado's tiny $3,250 initial investment to co-found Chomps
“I mentioned how much had he invested and he was like, it was at 32 53,250 dollars, I think is what he had put up. So I cut a check and match that.”
Ali: Chomps was originally founded to compete with Omaha Steaks
“Pete and I met through mutual friends. We were all playing cards and he had mentioned that he had started a company To compete with Omaha Steaks, right? To offer grass fed, grass finished, like a healthier version.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Pete'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 | Co-founder & Co-CEO, Chomps | 4 | 24 | 50% 2/4 | full record on How I Built This → |
 MASTERS OF SCALELEDGER | Co-founder & Co-CEO, Chomps | 1 | 6 | 0% 0/1 | full record on Masters of Scale → |