#170 Original Sunshine: The Best Bagel You've Never Heard Of

Josh: Welcome to The Pitch, where startup founders raise millions and listeners can invest. I’m Josh Muccio

Lisa: And I’m Lisa Muccio. And on the show today we have Original Sunshine. They’re raising one million dollars.

Josh: This company was born to bring sunshine into everyday hearts and minds. 

Lisa: The founders do it. The food does it, there's sunshine pouring out of everyone and everything to do with this company. 

Josh: And yes, in case you're wondering, it's a bagel company. So Brad and David came into our lives and we just knew that we had to have them on the show.

Lisa: Yeah

Josh: They served bagels multiple days leading up to their pitch. Like at our event, they're serving bagels to all of the guests, the VIPs, the VCs, other founders, but they don't tell anyone that they are gonna be pitching on our show. 

Lisa: And they don't tell anyone that they are Gluten-free bagels. 

Josh: Exactly.

Lisa: Most gluten-free products are made with like a rice flour, potato starch, tapioca flour, whatever

Josh: the nasty stuff!

Lisa: Just like random ingredients that don't actually taste like bread. These bagels are made with wheat flour. They've removed the gluten, and Brad has been able to like recreate what gluten does in a bagel.

Josh: Miraculously. 

Lisa: I have never had a good gluten-free bagel in my life until trying the original Sunshine Bagels. And I’ve been gluten free for years.

Josh: So in the pitch you're about to hear is the reveal that these guys were making gluten-free bagels for everyone, including the VCs, and they didn't know it. The question is, will the VCs like them enough to invest in the sesame seed round?

Lisa: The Pitch for Original Sunshine is coming up, after this.

Josh: And Lisa and I, we’re going to be touring different cities meeting listeners and LPs over the next few months, we’ll be in SF in October, Austin and New York in November… because we’re raising Fund II! You can RSVP to join us at one of those meetups at pitch.show/events

[break]

Welcome back to the pitch for Original Sunshine. Let’s meet the investors.

Charles Hudson with Precursor Ventures
Sometimes a business is what it is, not what you want it to be.

Elizabeth Yin with Hustle Fund

Can I ask you a very direct question?

Jesse Middleton with Flybridge

I am so sick of people that are building stuff for building stuff's sake.

And a new investor to the show, Dawn Dobras with Capital F

Do not grow one more inch until you improve this brand

Josh: Original sin. 

Lisa: Oh my-

Josh: Original Sunshine. [clap]

Charles: I was gonna say original sin, woah 

Dawn: Wow. I know. 

After serving a bagel breakfast disguised as caterers, David and Brad walked in The Pitch Room with grilled cheese on their gluten free sourdough.

David: Hello. 

Jesse: Hello. 

Elizabeth: Hi. 

Dawn: Hello. 

Brad: So I made you some grilled cheese sandwiches.

David: I’m David by the way

Elizabeth: Oh my God. 

Jesse: Thank you David. 

David: Also catered your breakfast. 

Jesse: Yeah. Thank you. 

Elizabeth: Great to meet you, David. 

Brad: I'm Brad. 

David: David. 

Dawn: Thank you for the uh, bagel item. 

Elizabeth: Thank you. 

David: I got a little story for you guys. 

Elizabeth: Yeah. 

David: 10 ish years ago. I'm sitting with my parents at the Cleveland Clinic. My doctors are like, you're about to go through a really crazy health scare and you can't eat your favorite foods, you can't drink your favorite things. And ended up going through it. I, I realized I wanted to work in food. I quit my job. I moved home and my parents were like, Hey, we're, it was July 4th. Usually I was gonna be with friends. They're like, we're going a barbecue. And I get there and I see this guy I’ve never met before, barbecuing. I'm like, I'm gonna go talk to him. I get introduced to him from the person whose house we were at. 

Brad: So the guys whose house we're at. His name is Bart. And Bart was a franchisee of a brand that I co-founded called Blaze Pizza. And he's like, oh, you cook, man the grill? And I was like, I'll gladly. 'cause the temperature he had was so low that there wasn't gonna be good food. And then David gets introduced to me and he is like, hi, I'm David. And Bart's like, oh, David is a, um, he likes food too. I'm like, okay, I guess we should talk about food then. I'm like, what do you do? And he is like, oh, I'm in the food world. And I’m like, do you have a, do you have a job? Do you have a business? And he is like. No, he probably should have said, I'm a millennial. Like I don't really, I do everything. I just make money and somehow I survive.

Jesse: I have a food blog. 

Brad: I'm an influencer. But what was so interesting about that encounter is I just know from life when I see the makings of a successful person and it's someone like that, that just is like, I don't really have a plan, but I know where I want to go. He wanted to be in the food business. I was in the food business. I was successful in the food business. I was thinking to myself, this is someone I need to partner with one day. And we stayed in touch for nine-ish years until I developed the foundation for this product, which is a gluten-free wheat starch based flour that we also make into things like baked goods, bagels, sourdough breads. And David is our champion. 

David: So when we first started, this was 2022, the middle of 2022. I was like, look, we, we really need to share this with people because we thought we built the flour. We really realized in COVID chefs didn't have the time to bake. They were gonna laugh me outta the kitchen if I ever walked in there. They wanted something they could just put on the menu being gluten-free specifically. So I was like, Brad, those bagels that you made for me, let's just share those with people. Let's let them see what they can make with this flour. If they buy our flour, great. If they buy the bagels, even better. And we shared it with someone who shared it with someone in New York, and I get a phone call, and it's, Hey, my name is Chris. And I'm like, Hey Chris. And he's like, I'm the owner of Tompkins Square Bagels. And I'm like, oh, okay. Like that's, I think big time. So I'm like, one second, let me call my partner. I call Brad and I'm like, Brad, Chris from Tompkins Square Bagels wants our bagels. Like, what do we do? 

Brad: So David, what I love about him is he was so naive about the bagel world that he didn't know that he was talking to my most favorite New York City bagel shop. And he's like, do you -

Jesse: It's pretty good. 

Brad: Have you, have you heard, have you heard of Tompkins Square Bagel? I'm like, yeah, we're going to go there. But nobody else. 

David: In the beginning of the beginning of 23, we launched with Tompkins. A week and a half later, if you're from New York, I get a call from Black Seed Bagels.

Jesse: Mm-hmm. 

Brad: And he says the same thing, have you heard of Black Seed Bagels? I'm like, yes.

David: Yeah One thing led to another, we started selling to them. Meanwhile, our bakery is in LA. So we are currently baking everything out of our LA facility and when that started happening, something happened to me. I'm like, I think I need to be in New York. New York's the mecca of bagels, where we started and I basically put myself on a Citi bike for about three months with bagels on every side. I'm sure I rode by you 

Jesse: Probably, we probably Citi Biked together. 

David: Yeah, yeah, probably. And I went to every single bagel shop. The ones that didn't even serve gluten-free in the past. Russ and Daughters, Utopia Bagels. Leon's Bagels, pretty much all of them. 

Brad: Ess-a

David: Ess-a Bagel.

Brad: we're in all those shops. 

David: So now what we've done is we focused a hundred percent on food service across the country, not just New York and LA. I think before gluten-free was not a fad or a trend, but it wasn't something that people talked about. And I think more and more people are now understanding the food that they're eating. And it's really important to understand what you're putting in your body. I'm pretty positive the reason what I went through is, was all the glyphosates that are in the food system. So what we're doing is a hundred percent glyphosate free. If you're not familiar with glyphosates, it's Roundup, which, if you go to Europe for example, you can eat whatever you want. You don't get a stomachache, you don't feel that bloatey-ness, you come back home, you eat a bagel, it tastes amazing when you first eat it, which it always does. And then you just get that stomach ache feeling, which never goes away. And that's what glyphosates are. 

Brad: And there's one way that you can combat that. And that's with long fermentation, which, sourdough in the US, people can digest that pretty easily. But sourdough made with glyphosate free product that's gluten-free, even easier to digest. So our product is not created for gluten-free people. It's created for everyone 

David: And with this product, which I believe you, three of you tried, I don't know if you, Elizabeth, you tried

Elizabeth: I haven’t tried it.

David: Well, you've got grilled cheese if you want. 

Dawn: Can we, are we allowed to try? 

David: Yeah yeah, yes, yes, yes

Brad: Of course. No that, that, that’s all plastic, no, that's real food

David: So yes, we want to be the gluten-free option in all these places, but what we've been building is, we're gonna be in some places that can serve this bagel and or gluten-free sourdough. And probably if I didn't tell you it was gluten-free, you would have no idea. And that's something that when I see this reaction, I was told I couldn't eat this stuff. 

Brad: Why would you care if it's gluten-free or glutinous? It's just good bread

Dawn: Great bread. 

David: So with the flour that Brad created, we started with bagels. We're now able to do sliced sourdough bread, and we have so many opportunities in other spaces, but our space in LA is about 1500 square feet. We're shipping everything across the country right now. We just got some major distribution, so we're looking to obviously build upon that. We've built a very small team, and we've also become profitable in the last year doing so as well. 

Jesse: That was amazing.

Elizabeth: Congrats. 

David: Thank you. 

Dawn: Wow. Great.

Jesse: So. Are you still in the flour business? 

David: It's a funny question. 

Jesse: Or only bread?

David: Like 90-

Brad: To some extent 

David: 98% of our sales are, are bread sales. I still think there's gonna be some opportunity with flour. But what we've realized is the volumes and the margins are just so much better in frozen goods. 

Jesse: Mm-hmm. 

David: And baked goods specifically, So that's where we think the business is gonna continue to grow. But I still have like dreams of people using it. So we'll see. 

Brad: And I love having moats. 

David: Yeah. 

Brad: Because I come from the food space, for, both as a restaurateur. I've owned restaurants. I co-founded and had a very successful exit with, with a restaurant brand that grew internationally. And I understand distribution, I understand manufacturing, I understand restaurant needs. I also understand proprietary stuff. So from the very beginning, this thing was designed to be something that's really hard to unlock if you're trying to reverse engineer it. 

Elizabeth: Actually, can you talk a little bit about that?

Brad: Sure.

Elizabeth: Like what is sort of the insight that you think many people have missed with gluten-free bread?

David: Good question. 

Elizabeth: Or flour

Brad: Well I just had to rebuild gluten. So that's where I focused my attention, was how do I get the texture, how do I get the chew, how do I get the gloss on the outside of the bread like a bagel? So I started this by developing the, what I thought to be the world's best bagel, which is really what I was start, wanting to do in life as, as someone like my ancestors came across from Europe I wanted to recreate the bagels that they had when they came into this country. And that's, that was the bagel I created as my gold standard, made with gluten to make a gluten-free bagel that performed like that. And I don't think that's how food scientists typically develop gluten-free products.

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm. 

Brad: I think they're saying, how do I make a round bread that goes through a piece of equipment and is efficient

David: It looks like a bagel, but doesn't taste like one. 

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm. 

David: And you can feel it too, like the bagel is one of the hardest things to make.

Jesse: Yeah. 

David: We get asked all the time like, can you do burger buns? Can you do this? But we wanted to start with the bagel first because it just hasn't been done the right way. And I was struggling to enjoy this for the last 10 ish, 12 ish years. 

Brad: Yeah. 

David: Until Brad made it for me and I had no idea it was gluten-free and I just kept eating them and I still do almost every single day. and it's something we're really happy about to be able to share the other products.

Brad: But food should never be a compromise. Gluten free shouldn't be a compromise, and life shouldn't be a compromise… 

Dawn: I feel a logo coming on here

[laughter]

Elizabeth: And so the way you've been selling these to date, is you've been walking into stores with your bagels and -

Brad: Up til a few months ago

David: Up til a few months ago 

Brad: once we had some, we have so much distribution now that we don't even know who most of our customers are

David: Some places are pulling it, but everything right now is, 99% of it is food service 

Elizabeth: uhhuh. 

David: We do private label for grocery 

Elizabeth: Uhhuh. 

David: The reason behind that is I previously had an ice cream business that was strictly just in retail. And to really build a, a profitable business, you really need some sort of foundation from volume. And volume obviously comes from private label as well. So we have that to kind of support building our brand in food service, right?

Brad: Yeah. So we're Erewhon, that was our first customer was Erewhon Market. So we're co-branded with them. 

Dawn: Bravo. Bravo.

Brad: Thank you. 

Dawn: Good job on that one.

Brad: Very first. And that's why we're in the bagel business. 

Dawn: I mean, that's amazing. 

Brad: And it's the only co-branded product I've ever seen in their store. Everything is either Erewhon label or someone else's brand. But this is the one that they're willing to put our name on 

David: It had their name on it.

Dawn: And how did you get that deal? 

David: So, I, I knew them from selling ice cream, and this is where it came in. I was like, Brad, we can share them the flour. It's in the middle of COVID. They're not gonna make anything with the flour for months if we're lucky. And I'm like, bake me 40 bagels. I'm gonna bring them breakfast just like I did for everyone outside. They responded saying, can you make this for us? And I'm like you can't say no to that. 

Brad: Yeah. 

David: So we start with them.

Dawn: Do you get Hailey Bieber to do the smoothie? 

David: I don't know about that. I mean, it's, it's been great working with them, but that kind of gave us a credibility to start going to other people. We're now also providing Wild Grain, if you're familiar with Wild Grain.

Charles: Yeah

David: We're now their gluten-free bagel supplier. 

Brad: Yeah. Truckload supplier. 

David: And about two weeks we'll be supplying all their sourdough products. 

Elizabeth: So I guess, good segue into customers and that distribution volume, what level are you doing right now? 

David: So the first year sales, which was 2023, we did about 660,000. Last year we did 1.6, and we're on track right now to do about three and a half. So every year, almost two or three X’ing. 

Elizabeth: Yeah. Amazing. 

Brad: And we're outta space now.

Elizabeth: We’ve been doing all of that in 1500 square feet. Wow

Brad: We didn’t plan to be in bagels, we didn't plan to be this big, and now we didn't plan for this demand, but now we see there's more demand than we can supply. 

David: Yeah. 

Elizabeth: Amazing.

Dawn: Can you like zoom out three to five years from now? Like what's the vision? 

The big bagel vision, after this.

Dawn: Can you like zoom out three to five years from now? Like what's the vision? 

David: Distribution is most important and paramount with this. And in three to five years from now, we'll gonna have the distribution to be able to not just have bagels, not just have buns, but have sliced sourdough bread products. And we wanna meet the customer where they are. So whether it is in an Erewhon, whether it's at a grocery store, whether it's in Wild Grain, whether it's a local bagel shop, like, we're not in every single state right now. Getting the distribution we're about to get, which is DOT foods. They basically supply, if you're in New York, all the chef's warehouse locations, all of Baldor, getting into that is something that's very difficult. 

Brad: So they distribute to the distributors. So this is where like, I'm like, I know this, this nonsense and you’ve gotta get into DOT to get big.

David: And something that we did, when I was first doing this, I actually befriended someone who was, built out the food service team for Oatly. I loved what Oatly did, being the option wherever you go, whether you're dairy free or you're not. We ended up hiring him. I don't know how we did, but we figured it out about a year ago.

Jesse: He loves bagels. 

David: He loves, yeah. 

Jesse: He’s gluten free.

Dawn: He understands a new opportunity.

David: Yeah. So we brought him on and that's kind of where we see in the next three to five years. All the cruise ships, all the hotels. 

David: And we obviously need the distribution and the manufacturing to get there. We haven't touched that, but the North Star, when Brad and I were like sitting like this-

Brad: This was my North Star

David: This is his North Star. 

Brad: My North Star is, you know, when you go to Starbucks and you have one of the world's worst bagels on the planet, we go, why? How's that possible? How can they do that? How dare they, they have got the capabilities to do good stuff. If they served our bagel, which is better than the glutinous bagel they're selling, maybe they could just switch all of their products to gluten-free and then they don't have to worry about cross-contamination.

Elizabeth: Yeah. 

Brad: So I foresee a day when we become someone like Starbucks supplier of either the flour or maybe perhaps all their baked goods. 

David: Yep

Brad: Maybe the whole world goes that way. 

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm. What are your, uh, cogs on this? 

David: Yeah. So right now, and, and keep in mind we're shipping everything LTL 

Elizabeth: Sure.

David: From our facility in LA, about 70% of sales are going to the East Coast every single week. Right now, margins with everything included are about 37%. Once we get into DOT foods, which will be happening in the next two weeks, DOT foods will be picking up by us, by the truckload, it goes to about 44%. We think it can get closer to 50, but at some point, we're gonna have to drop our price a little bit just to be able to get to these places that we're currently not in. 

Dawn: Can you talk about your retail pricing versus the competitors? 

David: Yeah, that's a good question. So from a gluten-free perspective, because of the premium ingredients we're using, which we're never gonna, we, we don't cut corners like in anything, we're probably always gonna be 10 to 15% more premium than everyone else. But what we've noticed, it's really interesting, is bagel shops that used to serve competitors, our bagels, we sell right now, on average, $1.50. they're selling at about a dollar 10, a dollar 20. once we bring in our product, their sales double or triple pretty quickly. 

Brad: In the restaurant

David: In the restaurant

Brad: In the restaurant. I'm not talking about their gluten free

David: Not their gluten free sales in general. 

Brad: They have more customers. 

David So we still think to answer the question like, we're gonna be more premium than everybody else, and we're okay with that. At the end of the day, we want to have the best ingredients and we're always gonna never stray away from that, being glyphosate free, being non GMO, not having any seed oils. We are dairy free as well. Um

Brad: and kosher. 

David: And kosher, OU kosher, which is important. But what we're noticing is Customers now are willing to pay more, understanding that they're just gonna feel better regardless if you're gluten-free or not. 

Charles: What's the current team makeup?

David: Yeah, so it's Brad, myself. We have one other co-founder, Ethan who’s my childhood best friend. 

Dawn: That’s great

David: He actually designed this. Um

Brad: That's his job. 

David: as I mentioned, we brought on Michael Orlowski, who leads our sales team. On top of that, we brought on Daniel Ceballos Diaz. He actually came from Juice Press. 

Brad: He's amazing. Yeah. 

Dawn: What are you raising? 

David: That’s a good question 

Dawn: What are you thinking about? 

David: That's a good question. So we're raising right now a total of a million. We have about half of that already committed. That's helping to open up the secondary facility we have, as well as facilitate the growth that we have with DOT. eventually in the next end of this year and beginning of next, we're gonna need to bring on more salespeople. and then eventually help from marketing as well. 'cause we haven't really done any of that to be honest with you. 

Jesse: With the dollars you're raising.

David: Yeah. 

Jesse: What volume will that enable you to get to?

David: Yeah. This year, we'll probably end up at about 3.5 to 4. DOT will obviously allow us to, any single distributor across the United States, regardless how big or small. We think as we continue to scale next year, we'll get close to 10. The year after that about uh, 25. 

Jesse: And, and who do you look up to in the industry? What, what brand has done this well, wholesale, maybe even in baked goods but a different category, but like sort of when you look out five years out.

Dawn: Simply Mills! Simply Mills just did a nice job.

David: Yeah, they did very well. I mean, that's one of them. Oatly I think what they did with building out being that option, whether you love the product or not, you have to give them credit. that's one of them. 

Brad: And then there's the big food service, like Rich's would be amazing.

David: Rich's is another one. Yeah. At the end of the day, we're gonna see if we stay in food service, which is what we're doing in private label, if we do end up doing retail, we'll see. It's not really our focus right now. We intend to do private label for grocery to really understand how that's going to work, which, that will start next year. We already have plans and orders to get that started, we just needed the secondary facility to get opened. 

Elizabeth: What are the terms on this round?

David: Yeah, so it's on a safe note at a 9 million post. 

Dawn: What's keeping you up at night? 

David: I mean, honestly and this is about to get solved with DOT, because we ship LTL, it's really out of our control. 

Charles: Yeah. 

David: So having, just making sure the product gets to the right place at the right time not getting paid on time, which is gonna get solved with DOT foods. at the end of the day, like we built a team in LA and our baking team, making sure that they're okay, honestly. I think it's really special that we get to support these people.

Brad: Yeah. We have like , no turnover. So I think that

David: In two years we haven't had any turnover.

Brad: I, I used to keep, be up at night worried about like is someone gonna get a, a hair in their bagel, or are they gonna complain that it's dense or we have an inconsistent pack, or, no, not with our team. 

David: To be honest, I'm just happy I get to do this. Like I think with other things, I mean, I have a wedding coming up, I guess making sure my wife's happy with that. Like to be honest with you, like a big problem is that if a customer of ours like orders way more than they can and we can't supply that. That's something that just hurts me. I'm not the one just to be like, Hey, you'll get it in two weeks. Like 

Brad: He's gotten on planes with dry ice.

David: To give a story. When we launched with Black Seed Bagels, it was New Year's of 2023 and the product didn't get there on time. I'm living in Mexico City at this point. My wife is from there. And I get a call at 10:00 AM from Rob who's head of operations being like the bagels didn't arrive. And he's like, can you get it here next week? I'm like, Rob, I, my wife’s listening on the phone, she luckily supports me with all this. I book a flight. I go to our facility, I pick up bagels in LA. I then fly to New York and I get the next -

Jesse: TSA must love you.

David: Oh dude. I give them bagels all the time. I give them bagels every time because I, I fly now with Delta and I picked one airline, and whenever I'm over weight, I just give 'em bagels. And they don’t charge me! 

Jesse: I was just gonna say, you need to be on Delta. They should absolutely be putting you in there

David: So, Well, that's the, that's the goal, that we, we've started having conversations with them. It's all, it just comes back to like our facility. We have to be really careful with who we want to target. Um, it's kind of funny 'cause like Michael wants to just like rock and roll with all these people, with the connections he has from Oatly. We just need to be careful with what we could actually supply and we don't wanna over promise and not be able to deliver. So we've narrowed down a facility in New York that we're planning to open up the end of this year with these funds. That can help us scale to that secondary and third and fourth year. 

Jesse: I, I have a question. 

David: Yeah. 

Jesse: On, in this industry. 

David: Yeah. 

Jesse: And. As a firm, we don't invest in this category at all. 

David: Yeah.

Jesse: As an individual, as an angel, I've made investments in the food industry, both in hospitality businesses and elsewhere. One thing I can never wrap my head around is defensibility. You mentioned this earlier, you know, you keep it the secret close and this is what happens.

Brad: We, we dry blend our own flour

Jesse: Yeah. 

Brad: And we make our own bagels. So there's IP not only on our ingredient sourcing, but then how we blend the dry mix and then we convert the dry mix ourselves into the baked goods. So that's also a process. So there's three levels.

Jesse: And how do you, when you expand, will there be a moment where you work with outside companies to produce products or will you do this yourself

David: It’s a good question. At some point, yes, but the problem, and it's going to get fixed at some point, is because our product is made from wheat, even though it's a hundred percent gluten free, you can't give this to a co-packer.

Jesse: Yeah. 

David: Because it's an allergen. So what we're looking at, the opportunities, is these larger co-packers wanna start bringing in one or two companies to work with instead of working with five or six or seven. And at that point, we would then be able to be that. So we've had conversations with a few people. We're not there yet. We don't need to give that up yet, but at some point, obviously that's kind of where we think it will go. Having control of the facility and the people is something that's very different, instead of just giving this to a co-packer where they just need to make volume and that's it. Every single bagel, you feel the love, you feel the joy, you feel the passion, and that's something you can't really replicate in other places. 

Charles: What are you guys looking for beyond capital? Like what could investors do to help you? 

David: Yeah, that's a good question. 

Brad: I, I, I love when there's more than capital, when there's somebody that's actually a champion for the product, knows people, has some really good contacts that can help us

David: For, for me and for us, like with everything we do, we just wanna surround ourselves with the, the smartest people. Even if you're not in food. Or manufacturing or beverage. 

Brad: Everybody eats so everyone's gotta know someone that eats. 

David: Yeah. Honestly, it's true. It's true. 

Jesse: GLP-1s are changing that!

David: Honestly. Everyone knows someone, whether they, their son or daughter or a friend from high school or college is now celiac or gluten free. 

Charles: We're investors in Partake Foods, so 

David: Of course, I love what, I love what she built, and that's something that's not changing. 

Elizabeth: So. At Hustle Fund we only invest in software and tech. So I think for Hustle Fund, this is not a fit. 

David: Yeah. 

Elizabeth: But for me personally, I've done a fair number of food angel investments and 

David: Yeah

Elizabeth: I'm the dumb money, but I go by, I guess my taste,

David: No no no, don’t say that. I wouldn’t say that.

Elizabeth: And you guys clearly know what you're doing.

Dawn: Yeah. 

Elizabeth: So, if you would have my small check, I'm in for 10k. 

David: I would glad, you're not, I wouldn't say dumb money, so don't say that. 

Elizabeth: I, I guess contingent on, I still haven't tried the bagel yet, so. 

Brad: Oh! 

Jesse: Open the bag right now. 

Elizabeth: I don't know if you wanna touch these bags or I can eat it out there. 

David: No, you can slice and toast so you're good to go. Where are you, thank you also for that, that really means a lot. 

Jesse: Yeah, I think, I think you are both awesome. I, I love what you're making here. I, I went gluten-free for many years. A long time ago, I actually thought I, may be celiac, wound up not, but I've, I've tried to stay more gluten-free than not. And I think your, your view on where the world is going, if you think about these things, if you can make this product as good, which it is, as gluten. Like, why not just serve it and not say it? It was interesting cause you walked in here and I saw you and you had made breakfast, I thought to myself they've been serving gluten free stuff, I'm sure. 

David: Yeah. 

Jesse: But no one said anything. 

David: Exactly. 

Jesse: And it was not a topic. It was like an amazing way to feel that on the other side, knowing that for anybody who had an intolerance or felt this way with these additives, like they were gonna feel better, right? You know that. So I think it's great. as a firm, we invest in software as well, and I make very few angel investments and when my wife hears the episode, she'll yell at me. But we actually, she and I have invested in a couple of food companies. I, I'd like to also angel invest in this. 

David: Amazing. Thank you. I appreciate that. 

Jesse: Which is gonna open up a whole floodgate of people emailing me. I’d think about sort probably between like 10 and 20K. I think you two are just, you're, you're awesome. 

David: Thank you. And I, I, I appreciate what you said, like. We don't really go places and be like, Hey, we're gluten-free in your face. Unless it needs to be, we just wanted to serve food to good people. 

Jesse: I feel like there's a, I don't know if you do this or not, but I feel like there is an opportunity to work on some version of this brand.

David: Yeah. 

Jesse: I'm not a brand person, so don't trust my judgment on how to do it, but like, bringing gluten-free. Further down the label. Almost like making this a thing that's just, it's better for you. 

David: It happens to be

Jesse: It's just like the kosher label. You, it's on the back of it. It's there, you know it is. 

David: Yeah. 

Jesse: But you know, you don't say kosher gluten-free bagel on, on the label. Right. 

David: Good que- yeah. 

Charles: Yeah, it's interesting. It's interesting, like I have a bunch of friends who are Wild Grain people.

David: Yeah. 

Charles: And I think you could have the same thing where people like, frozen bread can only be so good, and then you have that product. They're like, actually 

David: Yeah. And they're amazing people. 

Brad: Yeah. And we just started with them. We started with, and the orders are crazy 

Charles: Yeah. We do some food investing at Precursor and, and so, we're in Bobbie Baby, we're in Partake Foods. 

David: Yeah. 

Charles: We've done manufactured products, so those don't scare me. We would do 25. It's funny you didn't tell me it was a gluten-free bagel when I had this morning, I was like, ah, it’s a good bagel!

Jesse: This is my point!

Charles: I was like, it was a good bagel.

David: Everyone thought I was a caterer. I was getting away with it. 

Charles: That's what I thought I was, I was like, wow. I said Josh really leveled up. He's got professional catering. But…

Brad: Next time, next time.

Charles: But, um, we've had, we've had really good success. It's funny, this sounds very basic. My rule with, and Josh knows this, my rule with food-based investments is the product has to taste good. 

Elizabeth: Yes. 

Charles: And there's a shocking number of food-based companies I've met where you taste the product and you're like, nobody will eat or buy this. 

David: Yeah. 

Charles: And I don't know, I also wrote down, you two have a genuine affection for each other.

Jesse: Yeah. 

Charles: And I think that goes a long way when you're dealing with the ups and downs-

Brad: There's a lot of respect for all the people in our company, and that's probably why we don't have turnover. 

Charles: Yeah. 

Brad: And why the product tastes better.

Charles: It's very good. 

David: Thank you much. 

Charles: Also one of my teammates has gone gluten free and there are many times where we're having meals or meetings and we have to think about how to accommodate her out of respect. Well, everybody could just eat this and this would solve her problem. 

David: That's, that's where I, I, I really appreciate. 

Dawn: It shouldn’t be hard

David: Thank you for all the words, all the support. We want it to be where you can go with your partner, business partner, wife, husband, whoever, son, daughter. All go to the same restaurant, eat the same food at the same table, and not have to compromise. 

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm. 

Charles: Yep. 

David: That's something where I wake up and I'm like, how can we solve that problem? Because you shouldn't have to eat bad food or have to deal with that. That's just silly. So thank you. 

Dawn: Alright. Well, I'll round this up. So our fund does not invest in CPG. And again, my husband will probably kill me, but yeah, I'm actually very open to an angel investment here. First of all, I love the two of you guys. 

David: Thank you. 

Dawn: And what I love about you is the chutzpah of riding your bike around and getting into the top bakeries and retail outlets. Formerly I was CEO of Credo Beauty. We had 130 brands and I will tell you the founders that started with the credibility building are the winners I love that about you guys. 

David: Thank you. 

Dawn: You had me at Erewhon, right? Like that, right, that's a tough get. That is. 

Brad: And that's before we knew what we were doing. 

Dawn: And that is always on my vision board for every consumer founder that I talk to, I'm like, your vision board, your dinner party of distributors is Erewhon. So as a first customer, they're extremely discerning. So great job on that. 

David: Thank you

Dawn: And also everyone takes note of them in the industry. 

David: Yep. Yep. 

Dawn: I also love that you mentioned your wife as like something that keeps you up at night. 

David: Yeah. She sends me videos of how to be the best husband so. We got civilly married earlier this year.

Dawn: I like that.

David: Our wedding is in November. 

Brad: Send those to me

Dawn: Yeah. I like that, No, I mean, I, when we invest, we invest in full people. 

Brad: Yeah. That's the smartest way

Dawn: And full people

David: I'm not sitting here without her. So 

Dawn: And um I don't love your brand. 

David: Okay. No. I appreciate that. 

Dawn: Um, I love the name, but this. I mean, if you're a premium product, like, wow, me. Like the, the taste wows me. Your story wows me. The individual ingredient. This packaging, I would blow past. 

David: Yeah. 

Elizabeth: Yeah. I have to admit the packaging looks like Safeway. 

Dawn: Do not grow one more inch or one more bagel or one more anything until you improve this brand. 

David: Okay. Yeah. 

Dawn: I mean, frankly, when you walked in, I kind of like, not that I'm a brand snob, but I was kind of like, I could never invest in this. 'cause I don't like the brand. 

David: Well, I appreciate that, that means a lot.

Dawn: You sold me on the rest of the story. 

David: It means a lot. 

Dawn: But that's something you need to invest in. 

David: And this is why having a group of people like this as investors. 

Brad: Exactly. 

David: Having advice like this is something that's just very impactful.

Brad: Agree

David: and, and helping us kind of make decisions that we wouldn't necessarily think of. 

Jesse: I didn't ask this question before. Had you raised outside money? 

David: Yeah

Jesse: Before

David: Yeah. 

Jesse: How much

David: We raised a safe on a six and a half post, and it was a total of 1.6 we raised on that.

Jesse: Got it. 

David: That helped us open the facility. Get us through, obviously all the overhead we have. 

Brad: And then we had to order containers of product

David: Containers of product, things like that. That's only the other round we've done, so. 

Jesse: Got it. 

David: And then we self-funded it to get it started. So

Elizabeth: Mhm. Awesome. Thank you guys. Exciting party round. 

David: Had low expectations on this. It means a lot. Like I, I feel, I dunno if I look nervous or any of that, but like

Brad: No, you didn't look nervous.

David: I don't like being on camera and this is just

Jesse: You did great. 

Brad: Thank you. Such a pleasure.

Dawn: Thank you

David: Can I give you a hug?

Elizabeth: Yes

Charles: Alright guys, take care 

David: Enjoy 

[applause] 

Dawn: That's very cute

Elizabeth: Party round!

Dawn: It's very American Idol. I love that. 

Jesse: I like, I like that. It's a, well, Charles invested out of his fund, but like, the rest of us are like, we, we don't do this. But I know this is gonna open up like every food startup

Josh: Your first angel check on our show. 

Jesse: Yeah. Every, every, uh, food company out there is gonna be like, oh. You wanna write an angel check in my food company? It was good

Josh: You're the dev software and the food guy now. 

Jesse: That's right. Yeah. Yeah. 

Josh: That's awesome. 

Jesse: My wife and I do invest in hospitality on the side, so it's like, it's not out of our realm, but it's, but I would keep it quiet usually. Not now. 

Charles: It’s better that way. 

Josh: Yeah. Why do you guys love this deal so much? 

Jesse: I love them. 

Dawn: Yeah. 

Elizabeth: They know what they're doing 

Jesse: Almost, almost more than anything else. I'm, I love your point. 

Charles: Yeah. Yeah.

Jesse: It needs to taste good and it was great. I love the fact that yesterday and today I ate this, and not at one moment did they say, do you want some gluten-free bread? Or it's gluten-free. Like, they were so thoughtful about that. 

Josh: Yeah. 

Jesse: Like just the, that connection between the two of them and that I just, I'm, I'm wowed by it. And their traction. I mean, like, I don't, don't get me wrong, I'm not investing because I love them and they don't have a business. They're, they're doing great. I mean, if they do three and a half, 4 million this year, 10 million, and they actually do that. With raising a couple million dollars in total, like that's an impressive team. 

Josh: The way I've been pitching this is, they're desegregating bagels.

Jesse: You're not in charge of brand. You're not in charge of brand. 

Elizabeth: Yeah. That's not… [laughter]

Elizabeth: Yeah. I have to admit, like in CPG and food and whatnot, since I'm the dumb money, I need sort of that external validation and they had it. You know, everybody and their mother's knocking on their door and that's great.

Jesse: All my neighbors in New York are their customers, They have an opportunity to lead the charge with a beautiful brand about the idea of bringing like great food to the table. This sort of movement, it doesn't have to be less than because it's gluten free. You can invite everybody in to share, like, yeah, I would have these every time we serve food at, you know, for an event or a place or breakfast, I would get these and I wouldn't say, order, two dozen bagels and a dozen gluten free. Right? Yeah. Just these are what I want. And if it's 10% more, they're absolutely right. Like in New York City and San Francisco and the big markets like, the delivery fees and random fees add up anyway, so you're not gonna notice. And so that wouldn't be a hurdle for me. 

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Josh: We met David like six months ago and I was like, Hey. I don't know if you're still gonna be raising when we, when we host the show, but like, we'd love to have you on, like his whole energy was just infectious on the call.

Jesse: Yeah. 

Josh: And then I was like, well, Lisa's gluten free. He's like, I'll, I'll send you guys some bagels. So we have the bagels and of course they're delicious enough where like, I was like, oh, I'll just eat these bagels. These are great. And then they just kept sending bagels like every couple weeks. Did you run outta bagels? Do you need more?

Jesse: This is what you gotta do

Dawn: See, but this is what I love about him. 

Jesse: Yeah.

Dawn: Like obsessive about the right people, right?

Josh: Yeah.

Dawn: Like the credibility builders. We didn't even talk about ozempic and the trends around that, but like, the idea of like, if you're dealing with a sensitive stomach, you might be going gluten-free.

Jesse: Yeah. 

Dawn: And also the idea that if I'm going to eat something, I want it to be delicious because I'm eating less. So I think there's a lot of interesting things about that 

Elizabeth: Well that’s always, like, to Charles's point, like, if the food isn't good, like I'm out

Jesse: But your, but your comment though, on the G, So I've been on, on a GLP1 for two years and the idea, I eat less and so therefore I care more about every bite

Dawn: What I eat, yes

Jesse: like what I eat, the order that I eat it, like that kind of thing. I think more about it and it does raise the bar on that. 

Dawn: Yeah. 

Dawn: and the exit with Simply Mills obviously is a nice path.

Jesse: Yeah. 

Josh: Yeah. What do you like, see for this company in five, 10 years? 

Dawn: I mean, the path usually is a strategic acquisition within the space. And so you have to be very capital efficient, right? The way that investors make money is capital efficient and growing the revenues here. So, I like their scrappiness. And you know, they have a shot with a 10 million, like you get 'em to a hundred million. There's people that wanna buy that. 

Jesse: Oh yeah. 

Charles: Yeah yeah yeah

Josh: Yeah. One last comment is when I was talking to David, he talked about how many VCs he's pitched, who didn't like that he was going the food service route, and they felt like if he was just building the brand it'd be more compelling. And I thought the reverse. I thought the food services piece was really smart. He gets that distribution. There's no marketing cost that comes alongside of that. 

Charles: Well you pay for it in other ways.

Jesse: Yeah

Josh: Right. 

Jesse: Yeah. Great brands got a higher multiple. 

Elizabeth: Yeah. 

Jesse: So like, that's the reason you would hear a VC like say that, right?

Josh: Sure. 

Jesse: So they wanted a higher multiple 

Elizabeth: I understand why he's getting that comment, but I think just from a sort of customer discovery and feedback loop perspective, I think the approach they've taken makes it easier to build a better product because they can take the feedback directly on everything. 

Josh: Mm-hmm. 

Elizabeth: And then kind of just iterate from there. I don't think that they're necessarily precluded from retail down the road. So I actually kind of like this sort of stepwise approach 'cause it allows you to build a really good product. 

Josh: Yeah. 

Dawn: I do think that if their vision was just food service, that's quite limiting, right? Like, you have to go mass on this. And the reason I'm interested is I think this is a tipping point for something that tastes better, is better, better for you. So I think their vision's bigger than that. 

Josh: Yeah. 

Dawn: But you know, they've anchored in a smaller kind of- 

Josh: You don't mind if they're starting there. 

Elizabeth: I think, I mean, there are a number of brands that started with sort of a, a similar approach, like totally different industry, but like Sam Adams beer, like he just took his beer from bar to bar.

Josh: Mm-hmm. 

Elizabeth: And then got the feedback to iterate on it. And then obviously now you can buy it in any grocery store or whatnot. 

Josh: Right. Yeah. Awesome. Alright

Charles: Cool. 

Josh: Let's break. 

Jesse: All right. 

Josh: That was a clean bagel sweep. I dunno. That wasn’t a good one.

Elizabeth: Hmmmmm

Dawn: Keep working on it. Keep working on it.

Jesse: Or don’t. Or don’t.

Charles: You’re a man of many talents, Josh.

Josh: What I should have said, is “there weren’t any holes in this pitch” 

Lisa: Oh my.

Josh: But I knew that they would bagel bite.

Lisa: Ohhh my!

Josh: 3 angel checks and a commitment from Precursor. Party round!!! The diligence party is coming up, after this.

[Break]

Welcome back. A week after the Original Sunshine pitch, the diligence party began. First up, David and Brad got on a call with Elizabeth.

David: Hey, Elizabeth. 

Elizabeth: Morning. How are you? 

David: I'm good. I can't complain. I like the bear in the background or whatever the animal is

Elizabeth: That’s a hippo. 

David: Are there baby hippos also in the back? 

Elizabeth: There are a lot of hippos. 

After a brief discussion around Elizabeth’s affinity for the hippo, she got right to it:

Elizabeth: I actually don't have any additional questions. I would love to write a small angel check of 10 K if you'll have me. 

David: We will a hundred percent have you. We're looking to have people who are passionate about what we're doing and also just the smartest people. 

Elizabeth: Well, thank you. If you're looking for the smartest people around the table you have the wrong person. But I am happy to throw my 2 cents whenever. I think, specific areas where people have come to me certainly one area is around fundraising. And then the other thing is I have invested in a lot of companies. There is literally nothing you could say about things going wrong in the business that would phase me or scare me. I've seen everything everything from, you know, peop- like co-founders disputes, people running to another country with a code base, like people embezzling money, somebody punching their co-founder. Like, there is nothing you can say, so, um, you know, I, I think it is the easiest way to kind of understand. All right. This is the situation at hand and also the easiest way to potentially help in, in case of a bind 

Brad: Yeah, we, I haven't punched him yet. [laughter]

Elizabeth signed and wired the following week. Next up, the bagel bros got on the phone with Dawn.

David: Hello 

Brad: Hello there.

Dawn: Hello. How are you guys?

Brad: We're great.

Dawn: So I wanna be like, just totally respectful of your time. 

David: Yeah. 

Dawn: So this would be a fit. As an angel. I am interested in it. I liked looking through all of your stuff. My angel checks have been between 5 and 20. I have been in your shoes, so a hundred percent. If this is not worth your time, I don't think you're gonna have problems raising money. So like I'm totally fine if you're like, yeah, we're only taking angel checks at this level. Like, peace be with you, like, no worries. 

David: Well, look, we just wanted to surround ourselves with smart people who challenge us to think differently. And, and you did that with us All I can say is Dawn, like, whatever you're comfortable-

Dawn: Yeah. So I am in, um, I, my guess is it'll be 15, 10, 15 k

David: Okay I really appreciate that 

Dawn: Great.

Dawn ended up investing 10k. And the bagel brothers kept the party going with Jesse and his wife, Cat, who didn’t sound mad at him at all

Jesse: Hello 

David: Hey Jesse. Hey Cat. 

Cat: Hi 

Jesse: David, are you back in Austin? 

David: I am back in Austin. 

Jesse: All right. And Brad, are you in Connecticut?

Brad: I am back in Connecticut, yes. 

Jesse: All right. We're heading sort of up your direction today. We're going up to the Catskills later today. 

David: Ooh, which part of the Catskills? 

Jesse: Uh, Cat, where are we going? John? Johnsonville. Is that right?

Cat: We're going to Jeffersonville 

Jesse: Jeffersonville. Begins with a J. I don't know. 

Cat: Can you just talk a little bit about is your long-term success dependent on retail being successful? So how should I think about your ability to scale from a venture standpoint up and to the right? 

David: Yeah I mean so far we've already doubled or almost tripled sales year over year. We do have an informal kind of advisor on our team who's built out a similar business in food service. He scaled it pretty quickly and sold it for about four to five x of sales. So I do think even if we don't go down that path, we're still gonna be able to build a very profitable and very sustainable business and something that people are going to want 

Brad: And there's some highly successful companies that only do food service. 

David: Yeah. 

Jesse: Yeah. What, who, who do you look up to in the sort of recent past who's either been acquired what do you sort of view as the path for this? 

Brad: An example would be Venice Baking. Like they, they started, they were selling a refrigerated. Dough balls to Whole Foods markets regionally in California. then they started making a gluten-free pizza crust and then they became the pizza crust to Domino's and California Pizza Kitchen. And now if you go to any pizza place in the country, I would say eight times outta 10, it's probably their product that's in there. and the volume is significantly higher there than it would be as a retail product. 

Jesse: Yeah 

Cat: That's great. Super helpful. Thank you. 

Jesse: Yeah. Awesome. Well, we need to jump, Cat and I will talk, we're gonna be in the car for uh, two, two and a half hours after this, so we'll, uh, we'll discuss, 

Cat: I was planning on sleeping, so 

Jesse: I'll talk to myself in the car. Don't worry. Yes. Well, thank you guys so much and hopefully we'll see you soon. 

Brad: Have a great long weekend. It's so nice to talk to you. 

Jesse: Cheers. 

Cat: Yes, you too. 

[goodbyes]

Jesse and Cat decided to invest 20k.

And finally, David and Brad had one more call with Charles.

David: Hey Charles.

Charles: Hey guys. 

Brad: Hey there. 

Charles: How are things going for you guys? 

David: Good. No complaints

Brad: Great

Charles: I mean, I guess for me, like the main things were, I just wanted to like get an update on the round and also just talk through like the sequencing of the things that you guys will do once you have the money. 

David: Yeah so in terms of the round, it's pretty much done

Charles: Awesome. 

David: It's gonna be oversubscribed. 

Charles: Congrats!

David: well, thank you. So pretty much finalizing that now. in terms of like the grand scheme of how we're gonna use it. First things first is optimizing the LA facility. 

Charles: Okay. 

David: Secondly, would then be opening up the New York facility, which we anticipate will be hopefully the beginning of next year. We're planning to hire some sales individuals, maybe one or two by the end of this year. 

Charles: Okay. And does does working with DOT. I guess, I dunno how to ask this. I mean, you guys are the experts here. How does it change your day to day? 

David: Ooh. 

Charles: Is it really just the, is it just the volume or is it more to it than that? 

David: From my side, like, I no longer will have to be chasing down distributors to get paid.

Charles: Mm-hmm.

David: Instead of having to send out 15 to 20 different invoices on a weekly basis, we send out one. Instead of us having to send trucks and deal with trucking all over the country, they pick up from us. So from a time perspective and overall efficiency in organization, it changes completely. 

Brad: So once you're in DOT, and let's say a concept that doesn't buy from any of those distributors that we are already in, wants to get the product, DOT probably already delivers to them on a daily basis, if not multiple times a day.

Charles: Okay. 

Brad: And on that delivery, they can deliver as little as one case. 

Charles: Hmm. 

Brad: So it, it changes the requirements from being like, let's say pallet order quantity minimums or multiple pallets to a case. 

Charles: Okay.

Brad: Which means that pretty much everybody in the country can get our product now because DOT's pretty much in every distributor everywhere.

Charles: Yeah. Cool. I guess the last question I have is like, other than scaling DOT, like what's the most important thing for you guys to get done in the context of this round? 

David: Overall efficiency I think is the, is the thing that we're looking for at the end of the day. We're gonna have our margins increase obviously by DOT, and then we're able to produce more product. We're gonna be in a situation where we're able to start making other products with Burger Buns, being able to test more on the R&D side. It gives us the opportunity to build our team the right way. 

Charles: Yeah, I mean, I always ask 'cause I like to know like from your point of view, like what's the most important thing. It's easy to lose track of that sometimes in the day to day of like, firefighting and problem solving as founders. So I always like to know for two reasons. One, to be in agreement with the founders that like, Hey, this is the frog. Whatever crude analogy we wanna use, dragon we have to slay, frog we have to boil, whatever it is that we gotta solve for in the context of this round. And also to not lose sight of that if we get bogged down in some issue with DOT. Or if we get bogged down in some issue with your landlord to never lose sight of the most important thing. 

David: Yeah. 

Charles: This is great this, this is like, I thought of this more as a check-in call. Like, nothing has changed about my level of interest of investing. So the next step, I will send you over our due diligence pack, which I don't think I've sent you yet. So I will get that kicked off this afternoon.

David: Cool. Okay.

Charles: It's good to see you both. 

Brad: This was great. It's always great to see you. Wanna see more of you!

Charles: Alright, Bye.

Josh: Only on The Pitch, do you go from voice AI tech company to bagel company. 

Lisa: Yeah. That's what makes it great. You never know what you're gonna get. 

Josh: It's also hilarious to see these VCs just like throwing money into food startups. 

Lisa: It tastes good. I'm in.

Josh: Charles is in, everybody else is in, and The Pitch Fund is also in. $144,000 is the most David would take from our fund, even though we wanted to invest more.

Lisa: Yeah

Josh: Because the round is oversubscribed. 

Lisa: Everybody loves bagels. 

Josh: And he also raised another $15,000 from a listener. 

Lisa: Yeah, Mike Tadasco

Josh: Mike Tadasco Sauce. 

Lisa: In Napa, Mike was one of the LPs in the audience watching, So. Good job, Mike, getting your allocation. 

Josh: Elizabeth Yin has been telling us this for the longest time. She's like, you guys have an edge in consumer product companies. 

Lisa: She tells us this at almost every event now.

Josh: Which is just funny. Like I guess it's her asking for more angel investments from us. I don't know.

Lisa: I don't know if that's what that is, but I appreciate the vote of confidence. 

Josh: I don't know. We keep finding these great consumer companies and I'm psyched to have 'em in the portfolio and I just wonder like why do other VCs not touch this stuff?

Lisa: C-P-G-C-P-G. So.

Josh: Announcement time. 

Lisa: Like we mentioned at the beginning of the episode, Josh and I are gonna be touring a few different cities, hosting events for LPs or potential LPs. We have David and Brad showing up to a couple of these events and they'll be bringing their bagels with them. So you can taste all of this delicious goodness. 

Josh: Come eat bagels. Talk about fund II. It's gonna be great!

Lisa: and we also will have other portfolio companies there too. It should be a really fun party.

No offer to invest in Original Sunshine is being made to the listening audience on today’s show. But you can become an LP in our fund. Fund I is closed, and we’re making our last few investments on this season of the show, but in Q1 of next year, we’re doing our first close on Fund II. To learn more, check out our brand new website for the fund at thepitch.fund. 

Next week on The Pitch…the investors take a trip on Turkish Hairlines

Rohit: I don't know, man, no one's dying from hair transplants, you know? 

Girum: That's true. But you've gotta find a market to start in.

That’s next week! Subscribe to season 14 on your favorite podcast player so you don’t miss future episodes. You can watch full length versions of every pitch over on our Patreon at The Pitch Uncut. 

And if you’re a founder and you want to be on the next season of our show, applications for season 15 are now open! Go apply at pitch.show/apply

We’ll see you next Wednesday, in the PITCH ROOM.

–

This episode was made by me, Josh Muccio, Lisa Muccio, Anna Ladd, and Enoch Kim. With deal sourcing by Peter Liu, John Alvarez, and Phoebe Sun.

Music in this episode is by The Muse Maker, Breakmaster Cylinder, Boxwood Orchestra, Freedust, Memory Palace, Gemini, and Peter Jean and The Runaway Queen.

Thanks to Danny Cohen with RiverPark Ventures and venture superconnector Mike MacCombie for introducing us to Original Sunshine.

The Pitch is made in partnership with the Vox Media Podcast Network.