224. “Crowdfunding for Capital” with Carolyn K. Haeler

Dawn talks with Carolyn Haeler, CEO and founder of Mightylicious, a gluten-free cookie company, about using crowdfunding as a nontraditional way to finance growth in CPG. Carolyn shares how she bootstrapped early production, landed Whole Foods quickly, used personal credit lines to manage early cash flow, then secured TD Bank loans as purchase orders grew and co-manufacturing introduced net-30 payment gaps. She explains why growth in grocery often requires significant upfront capital for inventory, distributor requirements, and costly free-fill programs, creating a chicken-and-egg challenge with national distributors and anchor accounts. After unsuccessful angel outreach during COVID, she launched a regulated crowdfunding campaign, warning about unprofitable marketing agencies, built a base of 4,000 equity investors, and raised $5M, which helped her access major distributors, brokers, and broader retail expansion across 43 states.

Who is Carolyn Haeler and whom does she serve? (00:42)

Bootstrapping To Whole Foods (01:26)

Loans And Growth Ceiling (03:21)

CPG Cash Flow Reality (04:53)

Shelf Fees And Free Fill (06:14)

Choosing Crowdfunding (08:32)

Marketing Pitfalls (10:29)

Running A Reg CF Raise (11:4)

Equity And Investor Terms (15:00)

Raising Five Million (15:59)

Doors Open With Distributors (16:22)

Crowdfunding Legitimacy (19:31)

Where To Buy Cookies (20:42)

Carolyn Haeler’s Information:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cpotz/

Website: https://republic.com/mighty-monkey

Transcript

Intro/Outro: 0:03

Welcome to Business Mastery with Dawn Kennedy, your quick under forty five minute dose of expert insights and strategies to make a positive impact on your business and life. Let's get started.

Dawn Kennedy: 0:18

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Business Mastery Podcast. Today we're going to be talking about crowdfunding, talking about ways to finance your business. That may not seem obvious, like loan or finding an investor like I have Caroline here who's done all about it. So thank you for joining us Thank you so much for having me.

Carolyn K. Haeler: 0:39

This is really exciting.

Dawn Kennedy: 0:41

Can you tell everyone who you

Carolyn K. Haeler: 0:43

Yes. My name is Carolyn Haeler. I'm the CEO and founder of gluten free cookies for everyone

Dawn Kennedy: 0:53

Amazing. All right, so let's talk about to raise money for your business like for you?

Carolyn K. Haeler: 1:02

Yeah. Where do you want me to It was quite a journey, so.

Dawn Kennedy: 1:06

Okay, so you were post startup So let's talk about did you you decided to do it this way? Or did you ask for a loan and How did you.

Carolyn K. Haeler: 1:18

Yeah, no, I did all of the I did everything, all of it. Yes, all of it. So I bootstrapped in the So my story is unique in that I I have celiac disease I wanted, I ate a lot of terrible products. And then all of a sudden I was like, I'm going to make a cookie. I like to bake. I'm going to make great cookies because everyone deserves a cookie. I used to be a stockbroker and I business experience, but I was I made some cookies, walked into a Whole Foods looking for feedback, and they were like, that's the best cookie I've ever tasted. This is like on a Thursday. And they were onboarding me on I was making cookies in my studio apartment, so I didn't have licenses. I didn't have registrations, I I have any of that. And you can't just sell cookies It's a very regulated industry.

Dawn Kennedy: 2:07

Yeah, you even don't outage You can't wholesale them. Yeah, yeah. It's a whole thing. Food, the whole thing.

Carolyn K. Haeler: 2:14

So I had to get all I got. Fortunately, it takes about six months to get on board with Whole Foods. I was able to find my commercial I was able to get all the and all those things. And it was only three Whole So I actually went back to work stockbroker again and on the used my credit card. I had good credit score. So I just opened up as many from Citibank, American Express had access to them. And I had like, by the time I thousand dollars line of credit, you're starting out. And especially because I was So for a full year, I would literally order stuff from Costco, Ship it to my commercial facility. Bake on the weekends. Drop it off at the Whole Foods Get paid thirty days later. Pay off my credit card. So I never really had a balance felt was perfectly acceptable taking on personally. And then after a year, I went from like three stores to ten, and then from ten stores to two full regions. And now my purchase orders are And I was like, oh, this is And that's when I got business I went to TD Bank and they I did not think that I would qualify for business loans, but I think it got like over one hundred and forty grand. And between a term loan and a revolver from TD Bank relatively easily at a very competitive rate. And so I used that to fund my At that point, when you get to start to sound really important And that's when I started I was like, these term loans are They're great for keeping the not long term because my at this point. I need to get to millions, and thirty to fifty percent. So if you're doing a million in in capital just to get to that

Dawn Kennedy: 4:16

Let's talk about that just real bootstrap and when you're using using your cards and you're number, right, you're starting starting to do all those things. There is a ceiling though, where going to be limited by your cash

Carolyn K. Haeler: 4:34

Yeah, very quickly, very

Dawn Kennedy: 4:37

So at the time, because I know be listening in and they're like like more capital than that. Let's just, again, you're talking about consumer products and goods. The margins aren't that great. This isn't just like services By the time you have that many stores, how many employees did you have?

Carolyn K. Haeler: 4:54

Even I was the only person. I ran the whole business myself. I was graphic design, I was I was quality control, research At this point, it was just me.

Dawn Kennedy: 5:06

Okay. So with that volume of required capital going out, you helping you bake or package or

Carolyn K. Haeler: 5:17

So when I was doing it myself, I had some teenagers that I paid the minimum wage hourly, and they were part of my costs, certainly, but it was very minimal. And then when I hit two full with a co-manufacturer. Yeah. Right. So he needs to be paid as soon And as soon as that product needs to be paid. But I don't get paid for another

Dawn Kennedy: 5:45

I was gonna say, so you're on You have to pay for finished All right. So so I hope everybody listening in kind of sees like the cash flow dilemma that you get to say, yes. When you decided on gone as far as you possibly already taken out and invested. There was just no more room for Is that pretty?

Carolyn K. Haeler: 6:07

Yes, there was not. Yeah, there's room for growth, but it's relatively slow painful growth. Yeah. And it limits your ability because you want to be able to go to a Shoprite which is owned by Wakefern. And they have three hundred And one of the interesting things about CPG is that in order to get into these stores, and it doesn't matter if it's a mom and pop shop or a huge company like Shoprite or even Walmart is actually an exception. Any of the big retailers like free product to get on shelf. It's usually one case or two break even often for six to So there is in that first So if you get three hundred purchase order for fifty grand. You are giving that product And if you don't give it away, you do not get it until what was. What's unique about Whole Foods They don't have that There's no there's no free fill, anointment into CPG was rather That Whole Foods was my first I was they were able to take me And I was able to grow slowly was fulfilling two full regions. And then in order to get just capital to just burn. So that is where it starts to

Dawn Kennedy: 7:34

All right, so.

Carolyn K. Haeler: 7:35

This is normal within food. Like two cases is relatively Some retailers have I'm dealing twenty grand per SKU.

Dawn Kennedy: 7:44

Wow. Okay.

Carolyn K. Haeler: 7:46

Yeah.

Dawn Kennedy: 7:47

Wow. Okay.

Carolyn K. Haeler: 7:48

And after that, doesn't even this one, this retailer comes with a guarantee for twelve months. But I will not break even in So they will guarantee that Some retailers, you give them off shelf two months later.

Dawn Kennedy: 8:02

Right?

Carolyn K. Haeler: 8:03

So you wouldn't you would never So it is a it is operationally, the operational costs are not capital intensive. It is relatively cyclical where I'm getting a purchase order, delivering that purchase order and then getting paid thirty days later. That's a pretty good cash flow, on shelf is very expensive.

Dawn Kennedy: 8:23

Okay. And that's when you went

Carolyn K. Haeler: 8:25

Yes. So I did everything where I So I went to Yale Business So my first plan of attack was family office I could attract. So I sent out a lot of emails to interested and got. We're talking to angels and One of the hurdles is to get involved in CPG. You have to get to that million million dollar mark. You have to have a half a which is a lot of money.

Dawn Kennedy: 8:59

Licking ice cream cone, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Carolyn K. Haeler: 9:01

It is. It is. Absolutely. There's so many. There's so many chicken and egg So they all were very unwilling to make a commitment. I sent out the email was involved with Yale, but also involved in crowdfunding. And he happened to be gluten free and had an autoimmune disease and was very interested in my product and facilitating more products like mine on the market. And he was the one who helped facilitate my success in the crowdfunding atmosphere. I thought about crowdfunding. I was sort of talking to angel investors, and this is during Covid. So like people, I literally lost because of second wave Covid in Like people literally got sick and they thought they were like ghosting me. They literally just had Covid. So it was an interesting time to And I was talking to one of my closest friends, and she was had just gotten a job as the head of marketing for crowdfunding platform. And she was like, Carolyn, There is like a couple grand, get on the platform. But if it doesn't go well, you You don't have to like continue it or whatever you raise, you can keep. So I, I started a campaign just and family and reaching out to And I paid for marketing. And I want to just caution I've been, I've worked with so past seven years and they are They are making a lot of money and you don't necessarily make anything. And I cannot tell you Because I So like, I have expectations of performance that I don't necessarily have any control over either because I don't control the markets or the stocks. Marketing firms charge you a retainers spend your money in negative profitability, and actually knows how to get you to years, found one. And it's very tricky because they all are their marketing people, so they sell you the world. So I was referred to a marketing They're like, in addition to with this marketing agency. For every dollar I spent, they So I was like, it's going to raise three hundred grand. It's obviously a terrible plus So they're charging me a retainer, but then only getting me a dollar for every dollar I spent. That's how marketing firms often And I was like, this is really So the crowdfunding platforms raise one hundred and fifty but in order to raise a crowdfunding, you have to bring to the table yourself.

Dawn Kennedy: 11:55

So how does that work? You just let people know that

Carolyn K. Haeler: 11:59

Yeah, you send a lot of emails.

Dawn Kennedy: 12:01

Yourself and what the project is

Carolyn K. Haeler: 12:05

Yeah. So when you go online to whole page like they're creating business basically, and it what you're raising all about a business, it's a business plan So your company, how you're gonna raise money, your financials in there, any team members you have, it's all in there. All the things that you would plan are up on your page. So anyone can go and read is all It all has to be public. And then you can send that page Let them know that you're They can click on it, they can It's very visual and see if they And what's nice about crowdfunding is they can invest one hundred dollars, they can invest fifty dollars, they can invest ten grand if they want, right? So it's people can get involved It's at a very sort of like, oh, Fifty bucks is your birthday Like, so there is the ability to Like I have over four thousand investors via the crowdfunding platform, but you have to be really diligent, aggressive about getting in front of people and be willing to post it to your Facebook page, send an email to all of your closest friends, send an email to everyone you've ever met in your entire life. Send an email to anyone whose necessarily an easy thing to do. It's it's not always the easiest I used to be a stockbroker, so I was hard for me, right? But for a lot of people, they've investment or for money. And so getting over that really, as I was doing this, it works in marketing, and I was And she was like, this is she was just, it costs her so much anxiety. And I was like, this is what I have to do in order to make this happen. And people can either invest or I can't, I can see who does terribly confrontational, right? Letting them know that you're It's very similar to all of called, where the people ask for

Dawn Kennedy: 14:11

Like the gofundme's.

Carolyn K. Haeler: 14:13

Yeah. So it's very everyone's So this is just a GoFundMe So the more people who see it and the more people who want to get involved, the more capital you raise. So it's all about, I used to And as a stock broker, it's unless, you know, you have some investments and are willing to You want to hit as many people, and you can. Offer incentives. So if you invest like fifty dollars, you get a bag of cookies. If you invest ten grand, you get to have a private tour of the facility. There's all sorts of different investors excited and interested

Dawn Kennedy: 14:53

So this was going to be my angel investor, most of the time stake until it's either paid Yeah. So in the crowdfunding, are you giving equity to four thousand people who are listening to this?

Carolyn K. Haeler: 15:05

Yes. It converts. The way the crowdfunding works the reg CF, but they don't get So this is a longer term investment and it's a crowd safe. So at different points they

Dawn Kennedy: 15:21

Okay. So so you have these will be with you for the I think it's important to point investor and they decide when paid back, if that ever happens Yeah. Your equity back. Right. So this is not just a long term actually going to be on this And that's really exciting. Yeah.

Carolyn K. Haeler: 15:46

They're a part of your cap table for good or for better or for worse.

Dawn Kennedy: 15:50

Right. So how much did you raise? Because the number was a little

Carolyn K. Haeler: 15:55

I did, I raised five million Yeah.

Dawn Kennedy: 15:57

So yeah, again, for everybody you have it. This is an eye watering amount And even if it is with four zero zero zero people, that's a lot of people who believe in what you're doing. And that's a lot. So what were you able to do with

Carolyn K. Haeler: 16:12

Yeah, I opened up everything for Suddenly one of the catch twenty two or the chicken and egg scenarios that you get in CPG is the distributors own the customers. Basically, there's two national distributors of food, Unifi and Kehe. And in order to get into giant and Shoprite and and Kroger and Ralphs and sprouts and all those people, you have to be in a distributor. You're like, okay, great. So you go to distributor, like, I'd love to be a partner with you. The distributor goes, great. In order to get into us, you Sprouts or Whole Foods or So you go back to them, you go and they go, great. Are you in one of the It's like circular loop, like self-fulfilling prophecy or fulfilling prophecy. And the distributor isn't just going to put you in their warehouse and take up that warehouse space unless you have an anchor account, is what it's called. It's easier to get into the are more willing to take risks. Their customer base is usually a They're usually looking to be an new products to offer to their So you walk into these independent stores who really want to work with you, but they can't anchor to get you into a distributor. So in order to get anchored, you Foods or a Kroger, and they are So it is a very, very because I had all this sort of the money I raised, I applied to distributors, they have like an going to put you in a couple DCS product for you so that you can and maybe get an anchor account. And we'll do this for you for a couple of years and see how it works out. And so I was able to get into Okay. Because of the success of the distributors are like, you're know you have capital. I also suddenly all the brokers wanted to work with me because

Dawn Kennedy: 18:19

Right?

Carolyn K. Haeler: 18:20

So I got brokerage. I got both two of the largest And that doesn't mean you get They usually put you in a couple DCS in your home market to see how that goes and started building.

Dawn Kennedy: 18:35

Incredible.

Carolyn K. Haeler: 18:36

Yeah. Yeah. So it does. It starts to open up the doors just closed, but locked.

Dawn Kennedy: 18:44

So yeah, this, this is an avenue I'm going to call it problem I don't think this is a problem need more money. I think that's an opportunity Because you have all of this You just needed more money. Yeah. For anybody who's run a business for any length of time, capital and cash is king, and you have to have it to be able to make big moves. So I really appreciate this conversation because I think it's a different way of kind of looking at how you can continue momentum and moving forward when it's sort of a non-traditional route, but it's one that's obviously working and not just working for small amounts of money.

Carolyn K. Haeler: 19:22

Yeah. And I like one of the things about the crowdfunding that is nice because even if you don't end up like, say, I've seen people do crowdfunding and then closing the account before the actual round is like taking it down. The reason for that is because getting into one of these crowdfunding sources, getting up on the site, having all the legal paperwork done, having all the financials being accepted onto the site really legitimizes you and gives you a platform to promote yourself. Right. And so people have gone up on crowdfunding and then found angel investors because they have something to talk about now, because now they do have some marketing. Now they have all this is have to approve it. Like the crowdfunding platform has lawyers, you have to have lawyers, everything has to be reviewed. It has to go through all the And that really legitimizes the It's going to cost you a few our costs just to be up there. So it's not free. Like if you cancel your risk is minimal. And it does get you that might not have if you're just

Dawn Kennedy: 20:33

I love it. Where can people find you? Learn more about your cookies, them online at all?

Carolyn K. Haeler: 20:41

I do. So we are we retail in over forty three states at this point. We're in major retailers like We're in Giant and Fairway. We're in H-e-b in Texas, we're out in all over California, but we're in hundreds and thousands of regional independent shops because we're more of a specialty cookie. So you can find us in a lot of If you can't find us there, ask something online or want Stores don't want to guess what They just want you to tell them. So go ahead and ask for things Amazon. We have a website which is We ship to all fifty states if Shipping is free. And then we have an Amazon page Mighty licious.

Dawn Kennedy: 21:27

All right. So we're going to put all that So if you find this on the day it launches or you find it two years later, you can still order your cookies. And you could get, I guess the That's the name of it. The gluten free is for celiac.

Carolyn K. Haeler: 21:43

Yeah. So gluten free is for a IOC disease. There's gluten intolerance, but it can be for anyone who has any type of inflammation, which is most people.

Dawn Kennedy: 21:52

So people. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you for clearing that up didn't want to misrepresent. So. Excellent. All right. So gluten free cookies, we're going to put that in the show notes. And thank you so much for how you raise capital. The eye watering amount. Thank you for being willing to business is going. So I appreciate this

Carolyn K. Haeler: 22:13

Oh, thank you so much. It's such a, it's such a fun because I think it's something women specifically because women easily as our male counterparts. So this is a really great avenue

Dawn Kennedy: 22:28

Yes, having multiple ways to do Having those other avenues. Right. Well, we'll talk to you all next Business Mastery Podcast. Take care.

Intro/Outro: 22:44

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Business Mastery Podcast. If you want to learn more about dot com and you can now check us course, any of your favorite Take care.