NexxtLevel Brands Podcast

There are a handful of genuinely useful operational nuggets - co-packer taken on pre-revenue, knowing buyer sell-through thresholds, COVID dry ice supply disruption - but the episode is heavily padded with personal origin story, mutual affirmation, and entrepreneurial platitudes that offer little to an experienced B2B operator.

“we found a co packer that took us on pre revenue and which was unheard of. You know, every co packer we talked to said you need a million or two in sales”

“you need to know what your buyer expects out of you. And I think we're just all, you know, we're just so happy to get in the door”

The episode rehashes standard CPG founder-journey content with little contrarian or first-principles thinking; the most interesting point - that natural brands should not dismiss Walmart - is made briefly and without depth, and the millet-as-next-quinoa framing is a well-worn category analogy.

“you would be missing a huge opportunity if you didn't want to be with Walmart because you didn't think that they were natural enough”

“millet is such a underutilized, nutrient dense whole grain. You know, it's similar to quinoa. It's like how chemo was 10 years ago”

Lindsay Cunningham is a genuine practitioner who built a real brand from a food truck to 1,800 retail doors and navigated co-packer, fundraising, and multi-retailer relationships, but the company is early-stage with a modest first round, and she frequently speaks in motivation-adjacent language rather than deep operational expertise.

“we went out to see 500,000. We ended up bringing over 700,000 in. But I probably contacted 400 people”

“we are in 1800 stores nationwide”

Better-than-average specificity for this type of show - named retailers, a fundraise amount, contact count, store count, a 2-3x sales comparison, and COVID supply chain mechanics - but no revenue figures, margin data, or detailed unit economics to anchor the story.

“we were probably only in about 17 stores for the first year”

“cauliflower wings... it's already selling two to three times more than others in their category”

The host asks mostly open, leading questions, frequently inserts his own anecdotes and affirms rather than probes, and never pushes on hard topics like margins, failed SKUs, or specific capital misuse; the Walmart question was the most pointed but was framed as myth-busting rather than genuine interrogation.

“That's awesome. And, um, so, yeah, cauliflower, the new. The new darling.”

“And you think, stoopwafels right. Jon Bronson. And um, it's like. And he tells me. Which I won't divulge, whatever, but he tells me the numbers and it's like, john, you got to be kidding me”