Breezy Griffith, co-founder of SkinnyDipped, describes the company's precarious financial position despite rapid retail distribution growth.
Insight
Breezy Griffith: CPG challenger brands cannot break through under pure profitability mandates
“I do think that there's a balance between growth and profitability, and I think, you know, the pendulum used to be too far one way, right, which was grow at all costs, but then it swung the other way, and then what happens is you can't, it's too hard for a cha…”
Disclosure
SkinnyDipped leadership paused salaries in 2022 to make employee payroll
“When I tell you we did not have money in twenty-twenty-two, we, I asked our entire, like, leadership team to put their salaries on hold just so that we could try to make payroll for the rest of the company.”
Disclosure
Breezy Griffith raised a funding round from 65 individual celebrity investors directly
“When I raised that money, That was not a, you know, that was not a syndicated fund. That was individually from each celebrity investor. 65 individual celebrity investors.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Co-founder Chrissy Holler snuck into Google Seattle to pitch the cafeteria chef
“Actually Google, the Google campus in Seattle was probably one of our first big accounts, and Chrissy snuck into their cafeteria, found the chef, and convinced him to bring the product in and offer it to their employees.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bill Nye invested seed money in SkinnyDipped despite his financial advisor's warnings
“Actually, one of our very first investors was Bill Nye. Thank you, Bill Nye. You gave us some seed money, despite his financial advisor, I think at the time, telling him it was a terrible idea.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rohan Oza invested roughly $150,000 in SkinnyDipped's initial seed round
“And Rohan came in on that very first seed round. I, you know, if memory serves, I think he put a 150, a 160,000 dollars into the business.”