Lex Evan of Lexington Bakes – Building a Dessert Brand as a Solo Founder

On this episode, we’re joined by Lex Evan, the Founder and CEO of Lexington Bakes. My audio isn't great so apologies in advance....

Lexington Bakes is a radically transparent dessert brand crafting nostalgic American treats with organic and fair-trade ingredients. What started as a pandemic side hustle quickly grew into a national CPG brand known for its bold design, clean labels, and radically honest sourcing.

From $5,000 in brownie pre-sales and a self-built Shopify store to landing in Erewhon, Foxtrot, and scaling toward 1,000 retail doors, Lex has built Lexington Bakes into a category-defining brand with just one full-time employee: himself.

In this episode, Lex shares how his background in design and brand strategy shaped the business, how he's preparing to scale with a co-manufacturer, why ingredient integrity is non-negotiable.

We chat with Lex about how to pitch retailers, package for impact, navigate a solo founder journey, and his recent journey to raising a $1M seed round.

Episode Highlights:
🍫 How a $50 brownie box launched the brand
📦 Designing a brand rooted in emotional connection
🌱 Why Lexington Bakes lists its ingredient partners on every package
🧁 The “No Naughty Ingredients™” standard
🔧 Moving from kitchen to co-manufacturer
🛒 What retailers actually want to see in a pitch
🎨 Packaging tips from a J&J design alum
🚀 How Lex is scaling while staying solo
💰 Fundraising as a first-time founder
💡 Why being “great to work with” is Lex’s superpower

⏱️ Table of Contents
00:00 – Intro & Origin Story
03:00 – Radical Ingredient Transparency
06:00 – Brand Building & Solo Founder Journey
10:00 – Packaging Design Advice
14:00 – Co-Manufacturing & Scaling Production
21:00 – Retail Strategy & Launching in Stores
28:00 – Fundraising & Investor Tips
40:00 – Final Thoughts & Where to Find Lex

Links:
Lexington Bakes – https://www.lexingtonbakes.com
Follow Lex on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexevan/

Follow Adam on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-martin-steinberg

Check out https://www.kitprint.co/ for CPG production design support.

Transcript

Adam Steinberg (00:00)
Lex, just for the listeners that aren't familiar with Lexington Bakes, just to give a quick lay of the land in terms of kind of the origin story, the problem that you wanted to solve or kind of the hole in the market that you saw the core products are offering and where the listeners can find them. And then maybe just, you know, one or two exciting things or updates going on lately.

Lex Evan (00:18)
Lexington Bakes makes organic and fair trade luxury treats. We started with brownies and cookies, but as you said, we now have chilled oat bars. They are two different platforms. So we started with indulgent chilled desserts, and now we have an entire new use occasion, which is breakfast, breakfast bars, breakfast treats. The breakfast treats are

No refined sugar, 40 % less sugar than the dessert. It's more of an everyday breakfast item. The origin story is, I would say peculiar as you're interviewing other people who've started their businesses with, I'd say more intention. I did not want to turn my baking hobby into a business because I knew that it would suck the joy out of it.

I have found a way after three years to not let that happen. So my background is in brand strategy, brand design. I used to work at Johnson and Johnson for 10 years, which is also peculiar for a millennial, but it's because they have hundreds, maybe 800 brands. So my job was never the same for too long, which is why I was able to stay there for 10 years, but I learned.

way more than like anyone ever learns at a job by being at that company. As someone who went to design school, I feel like I earned my MBA by working at J &J for 10 years. So throughout those 10 years, I had a hobby which was baking. I would bring desserts into work every Monday for two years straight as I started teaching myself how to make everything from macarons to eclairs to cupcakes, pies, cookies, and brownies.

I left in New York, moved to LA, got back into baking, posted them on Instagram. Everyone back home in New York was like, Hey, we missed those brownies. How about you ship them over to us? ⁓ I said, no, you're insane. Just go to bakery. They're like, Nope, we want your brownies. I'm like, all right, they're going to be $10 a pop and you have to order for, and you have to pay for expedited shipping. It's going to be $50 a box of four brownies. Like.

Adam Steinberg (02:06)
I'm

Lex Evan (02:22)
No one wants this. I was wrong. Cause I raised $5,000 in pre-sales in five days for a Brownie brand that did not exist. Um, so I was like, okay, friends challenge accepted. Um, if you deposit, here's my Venmo link. If you deposit this money in six weeks time, I will ship you the Brownies in time for Christmas. It honestly feels like a Hallmark movie.

Adam Steinberg (02:26)
Hahaha.

Lex Evan (02:52)
But that's honestly how it happened. And lo and behold, six weeks later, I had a brownie business, fully baked. Quickly after that, I put my design and branding skills to good use and built a Shopify store, officially launching the brand in January of 2022. And three months later, we were in 22 Foxtrot stores across Chicago, DC, and Texas.

And now three years later, we're in 100 stores, soon to be 500 stores and a thousand stores by the end of the year. Like, what?

Adam Steinberg (03:26)
Man, talk about early traction and gaining some early validation. That doesn't get much better than that.

Lex Evan (03:32)
It was exciting. And I know you asked me what problem that I set out to solve. I didn't. The problem found me. And I just, put strategy behind it around building a brand that people can really emotionally connect with. And the reason for that is largely our ingredient sourcing philosophy and practices. It's trademarked now, but

Adam Steinberg (03:41)
Yeah.

Lex Evan (03:59)
The whole thesis for the brand is radical ingredient transparency. So on all of our packaging, we have our ingredient partners logos on the box, also on the individual pouches on the back. You know exactly where everything is coming from. Like not just that we use organic sugar, but specifically wholesome brand organic sugar. And you can...

Adam Steinberg (04:17)
Yeah.

Lex Evan (04:22)
ladder up Lexington Bakes into all of these ingredient partners, brands, and know that like, not only does our brand do good for people on the planet, but all of our ingredient partners do as well. So it's a very holistic approach to caring about what you're eating, caring about other people, caring about the planet. A quote that I have on the bottom of all of our packaging is that good dessert is honest.

And leaves you with a sweet moment of knowing that everyone from people harvesting the ingredients to people celebrating with our treats are treated fairly.

Adam Steinberg (05:00)
I love that. Yeah, I love that. That makes total sense. feel like that's definitely a whole year you're kind of plugging the market. I don't think there's many that are that focused on transparency, especially in the dessert category. So I think that's really cool.

Lex Evan (05:12)
Yes, my superpower is that I care too much.

Adam Steinberg (05:15)
Well, yeah, with that, let's talk about building the brand as a one-man show. What's been key to getting to where you've got as a solo operator? And you mentioned a bit about your experience with Johnson & Johnson, which we'll dive into here in a bit. But what kind of skill sets did you bring to the table that enabled you to get so far being a one-man founder? And on the opposite side, what have you had to learn on the job, on the go?

Lex Evan (05:40)
I feel like everything in my life has been pointing me to this brand at the highest level. And I didn't realize this until after I named the brand. But I grew up on Lexington Ave in New Jersey. And I now have a company called Lexington Bakes. I named it Lexington Bakes partially after me, Lex, but also because of what the products are. They're classic.

Adam Steinberg (05:55)
I love that.

Lex Evan (06:03)
They're new American classics, classic American treats reimagined. So not only is it named after me, but the name also sounds very American and connects the brand to the product. And it creates this harmony when you first encounter the brand where your brain just clicks and understands, Lexington Bakes, brownies, cookies, I get it. My branding philosophy is eliminate.

any friction between you and your consumer and having a brand name that connects so well to what the product is, eliminates that friction.

⁓

Adam Steinberg (06:40)
Yeah, that

makes a lot of sense. talk a lot about it in CPG, like when someone's walking down the aisle, can consumer understand your brand in under five seconds, which it sounds like is top of mind for you.

Lex Evan (06:49)
Yes. And it, it's easy for founders to fall into this trap of like,

it's named after my dog or just this arbitrary reason to name a brand as a brand expert. No, that is, that's not how this works. Like every thing on your package needs to communicate something, including the brand name. And if you have to explain the brand name, you've already lost.

Adam Steinberg (07:18)
Yeah, that makes total sense. mean, clearly your design background is showing through here for sure.

Lex Evan (07:20)
So back to your question.

Exactly. Back to your question about the skill sets I brought to the table. this full circle moment from growing up on Lexington app to having a cookie, a business named Lexington Bakes. I went to journalism school because I told my guidance counselor in high school that I wanted to work at magazines. I got to journalism school and I was like, cool, this is great. We're writing stuff. When do I get to design the magazine? They're like, what are you talking about? That's graphic design. I was like, what?

Adam Steinberg (07:50)
You

Lex Evan (07:52)
That's what I need to do. So I transferred and went to design school, graduated with honors. And then in the entire world of graphic design, packaging was my least favorite thing. Like I wanted to design magazines, not boxes. And my first job out of college was at a wet wipes manufacturer. And I designed packaging for five years. But.

I got to work with like every major retailer on private label business. So I got to understand private label on a very intimate scale. don't know if that's the right word. But I, started my career learning how to move things off the shelf with no marketing budget. And then I went to a global brand like Neutrogena and Aveeno and clean and clear.

Adam Steinberg (08:25)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Lex Evan (08:42)
And I got to understand how to design for brands with huge global budgets, but also that components of those brands or different platforms need a little private label thinking into to move off the shelf with no marketing budget. I think those are the two most impactful skill sets that have allowed me to accomplish what I've accomplished as a, and then 10 years working at J and J like,

Adam Steinberg (09:03)
Yeah, absolutely.

Lex Evan (09:08)
with some of the world's best marketing people and packaging people and supply chain people and procurement people and R and D people, it doesn't get better than that. So I just asked countless questions. I think it was the most annoying person in every meeting. I was like, cool, how, why, when, how do we do it? I just wanted to learn everything. And that's, that's actually why I got into baking. I just wanted to learn how to make all my favorite desserts. And then I made them.

Adam Steinberg (09:36)
I love that. makes those. mean, your skill sets are clearly shining through. terms of other, you know, what would you tell an aspiring solo founder if they want to try and take a similar path, launch a brand in the CBG space, try to get as far as they can, you know, on their own, obviously using contractors here and there, I'm sure, but in general, kind of, you know, leading as a one man show and getting as far as they can. What would you recommend or what would you tell them?

Lex Evan (10:01)
I'm sure this is not the answer people want to hear, but learn on someone else's which correlates to life experience, work experience. I started this three years ago. I was 33. Of course, I wanted to start brands. I did try to start brands in my 20s, but not food, other startup ideas. But I had so much more to learn to be who I am today.

Maybe you can get there faster if you have skill sets, but yeah, just work at other businesses, understand how business works and do it while you're getting paid. Build your network. Network is going to be the most valuable thing you have in your arsenal to start a business because that's where funding comes in. But let's say you want to skip all that and you're like, I don't want to wait. I want to do it and I want to do it alone.

Google is your best friend. Like I taught myself how to bake everything from Google. I didn't go to culinary school and now I have award-winning brownies and cookies. So put in the time and effort, learn how to do things. Even if you hire other people to do things, learn how to do things so that when you hire people, you know how to hire them and you know what they're doing and that they're doing it the right way.

Adam Steinberg (11:12)
Yeah, that makes total sense. Talking about on a similar track and being a solo founder and as you mentioned, you got to start baking these in your kitchen. Tell us about that journey of making that pivot from out of your kitchen into a co-packer and kind of formalizing this business. Like what was the most challenging part of that transition?

Lex Evan (11:30)
So when I started Lexington Bakes, I knew from day one it would be in a commercial kitchen. When I lived in New York and I first started baking, I of course had friends who were like, you're coming to our Christmas party, why don't you bring some desserts? And that led to me accepting to do a friend's wedding, a thousand macarons for her wedding in a New York oven. It took me two weekends and I vowed I would never start a baking business again.

seven years after that is when Lexington Big started. And I knew from day one, like just operational efficiency, like you need to be in a commercial kitchen with racks and multiple huge ovens. But I had never worked in a commercial kitchen. So when that $5,000 presale happened, I was like, breathe, find a commercial kitchen, spend a couple of days in there before you actually make your scaled thing.

Honestly, it wasn't easy, but I learned very quickly because I had spent so many years in my home kitchen learning how to do different things in baking. And over the years, I've become more more efficient. Now that I'm partnering with a co-manufacturer, that is also another asset. The fact that I've been self manufacturing for three years.

because when they tell me they can't do something, I was like, but you can, because I did it. It's harder and I know you don't want to do it. But if that's the case, I'm going to go to another partner who will do it. One of the big reasons why our brownies taste better is because we melt butter and chocolate and a lot of consumer packaged brownies don't want to do that because it's difficult and especially for scaling. So they use cocoa powder and eggs. And in my definition, that is not a brownie, that is cake.

Adam Steinberg (13:14)
Hmm, I think still said that every time about that. How did you go about finding that co packer and how did you know that was the right one? I'm not sure if you start with one and maybe you've switched another one that you scale, but generally, how did you go about finding that co packer and how did you know it right one?

Lex Evan (13:29)
So we're going to circle back to my advice for new founders, Google. I found everything I needed to find for my business with Google. And no, it's not an ad for Google. It's just that is how you find things online. I will say on a deeper level.

Co-manufacturers aren't struggling for business, so they don't have the best websites or the most updated websites. So you have to call and email every single one of them to understand their capabilities and their minimums. And that is a very frustrating process. Ultimately, I hired a consultant to do that for me.

Cause I just couldn't do that while I was, I had my job for like a year and a half while I was building this business and making the product. So between the job and the manufacturing and then the marketing and sales, I didn't have time to do a full on co-packer search. so I hired someone, but now there are companies that make that easier. Like partner slate.

I think they have a fraction of the costs that I paid to do a co packer, comand search on their platform. and despite all of that and all the money that I spent, met my co packer, my current co co manufacturer at expo for free. So, don't do what I did. Just go to expo, go to trade shows, go to events.

I think there's other trade shows specifically for meeting co-manufacturers. Go to those. But if you're in a pinch, Google Partner Slate, all options at your fingertips.

Adam Steinberg (15:07)
Good to know. That's great. Are you still using the same one that you started with or have you had to pivot at all?

Lex Evan (15:12)
We haven't kicked off yet. So we've been working with this co-manufacturer for a year. We've done trials, we've replicated my products. I am currently fundraising to get that comand started. They're eager to start, I'm eager to start. I would like to never bake again. I'm just kidding. But I really can't wait for them to take over and start making pallets and pallets of product.

Adam Steinberg (15:14)
Okay.

Yeah, man, that's gonna be very exciting time. You talked about, go ahead.

Lex Evan (15:36)
It's going to be liberating.

I get my weekends back.

Adam Steinberg (15:41)
Yeah, exactly. You talked about earlier when you were kind of talking about the origin story of the brand, you talked about how important it is from being transparent in terms of where you're sourcing your ingredients. In terms of that raw ingredient sourcing, what's gotten easier or harder as you've scaled even up to this point from where started to where you are now?

Lex Evan (16:00)
What gets challenging is I'm a creative person, so I love creating new products and new formulas. Stopping myself is a challenge, but in some ways it's great that I have this arsenal, because I'm constantly still developing stuff. I just don't launch it. It's fun for me. Baking is still a hobby. It's now just an even, I'd say it's beyond a hobby and it's an art form.

like developing new recipes and products and flavors and building up this arsenal that I can pick and choose from when the right time is to launch. But from an ingredient perspective, like I have to consider every new product launch, what complexity it adds to our sourcing and procurement. like, do we even have space in the facility to bring in four or five new ingredients to launch this product?

As I develop new products, I try to be super efficient with the ingredients we're already using and how do they overlap. What's gotten easier is because I've gone to so many trade shows now, I'm constantly making relationships with ingredient suppliers even before we order or work together. So I'm building this library of like...

who to go to when I need to, for what. At first, I was just using Google. And it's a little bit of a struggle when you have such strict ingredient parameters. We are 100 % organic. We only source Fairtrade for any single ingredient that can be Fairtrade certified. So that's chocolate, sugar, coffee, vanilla.

And then I always hear from people that like, list all your ingredient partners and brands on your packaging, but like once you're making millions of brownies, you're not going to be able to do that because what if they don't have enough ingredients? but what I'm doing is building relationships with our ingredient partners, not suppliers, so that they're in the loop on our potential growth and where we're going.

and our volume projections for the next year or the next two years so that we can keep working together and keep that transparency on pack. potential problem, yes. But is there a way to work around it? Yes, with enough planning.

Adam Steinberg (18:22)
Would you say in terms of potential challenges that you experienced in sourcing those high quality fair trade ingredients, was it harder earlier? you know, the larger quantities you've been buying, has it been harder to get, you know, prices that work for your margins or just new challenges every day? Has it gotten, you know, harder since you scaled in some ways, kind of be able to continue to have access to those fair trade clean ingredients or has it gotten easier?

Lex Evan (18:49)
There are plenty of suppliers where you can source organic and fair trade ingredients, even for your home kitchen. So no, it honestly has not been a struggle at all to find the ingredients that I want to find. It's just been time consuming. But I've also, I've mapped out how much more efficient or less expensive it is to buy those ingredients in

greater quantities as we scale. So my projections in our model take into account like when we cross a certain threshold, like our cost of goods goes down because of the ingredient volume goes up. Just being aware of all of that is important. But then there's also like outside influences or factors like climate change, which is

affecting the availability of cacao, which is driving up the cost. I think I'm now paying three times the price that I was paying when I first started for chocolate. Eggs, I'm paying two to three times more right now, which is a challenge. But that's why I launched oat bars with no chocolate and no eggs.

Adam Steinberg (19:56)
There you go. Smart room and they taste amazing too.

Lex Evan (20:00)
Thank you.

Adam Steinberg (20:02)
So let's talk like 50 years a little bit in terms of talking about breaking into retail. You obviously have a lot of experience with this. What did you do to get yourself and more so the brand obviously ready to pitch that first retailer.

Lex Evan (20:17)
I learned from working at Johnson & Johnson to design brands for retailers and products for consumer. Everyone thinks their customer is the consumer, but that's not entirely correct. Retailers are your customers. You need to make sure you're addressing their needs, their goals, in addition to your consumers needs and goals.

That's how you design brands that retailers want to carry. So pitching them is not really a struggle because if you approach a retailer with. Here's a gap in your selection. Um, and actually it's a gap that every other retailer has, cause a brand like this doesn't exist. We are that brand. It becomes a no brainer for retailers to say, well, okay, yeah, we, don't have a 100 % organic brand that is also.

only fair trade that also has this radical ingredient transparency that also has this philosophy of no naughty ingredients also trademarked don't steal it anyone.

We just set our standards so high and differentiated from any other brand that it becomes a no-brainer for retailers who want to carry us.

Adam Steinberg (21:29)
Yeah, that's super smart. What retailers did you decide to approach first and why though?

Lex Evan (21:35)
so in the true nature of starting this business where I didn't want to, it happened. I didn't want to go into retail so quickly, but it just happened. Foxtrot had this open call for, up and coming brands. And I literally got served the Instagram ad on the last day that you can submit a brand. my internal, monologue was like, you just started. What are, what are you thinking? You're, you're going to win this like.

but I quickly shut that down and said, I'm going to miss every shot I don't take. So I applied and a couple of days later, they're like, Hey, we love your brand. Like, don't worry about the contest. We actually, we're going to put you in all the stores. And I was like, wait, what? that was wild to me and kind of validated my thinking of designing brands for retailers and products for people from there. Honestly, I was so busy because I had my full-time job.

and was building this brand slowly with a lot of like demand already from the onset that I was kind of more just doing my thing and attracting the right people. So Erwan emailed us and they're like, Hey, we love your brand. We think you should apply. And I was like, okay, like bucket list, let's do it. Getting to work with Erwan was really awesome.

developing the launch strategy to support that. I got really creative. I signed up to pop up at a farmer's market in LA a month before Air1 and then kept that going for three months, literally just to support our Air1 launch. And it worked. I got to talk to a lot of people. Because of where it was in LA, was a lot of influential people.

and it resonated. I partnered with other brands that were Erewon to do giveaways and Instagram collabs and it proved to be very successful because we became top 10 within three months of like 30 brands. Yeah.

Adam Steinberg (23:30)
That's great. And as you scaled that retail distribution and as still a solo operator, you know, resources, tools, partners, vendors, et cetera, have you had to start leaning on more of you to continue to scale into that retail distribution, like, know, across the state, you know, across California, think, you know, outside of California, across the country at this point.

Lex Evan (23:48)
Wait, sorry, can you repeat the question?

Adam Steinberg (23:49)
Yeah, sure. So like as you scale that retail distribution, continuing as a sole operator, I imagine if you scale, you have to start, you know, finding various resources or tools or partners, whether it's, know, merchandising partners or technology tools to be able to support that and be able to track everything. Like what's, what's kind of in key to support that retail distribution that you scaled.

Lex Evan (24:10)
I, as much as I am a creative person, I also love math. So I analyze data a lot. And as a small brand, you don't have access to much of it, but you have access to your own data. So I analyzed ordering data to kind of understand what was happening. I got scrappy with social media to support new retailer launches.

apps for managing inventory was critical, but like, of course all the CPG ones are super expensive. So I found another alternate solution or my own solution. we had one distributor for the first two years because I couldn't, I couldn't keep up with everything that was going on with like trying to do DTC, trying to do social media.

And was great. The business was supporting itself with that one distributor. but now that I've like been doing this full time for over a year and like adjusting the brand configuration and the product sizing and pricing and thinking about platforms and other skews. now it's, now it's time to like go big. Like I've spent the first three years kind of incubating this idea and learning and iterating. I think we're on like.

version six or seven of our packaging design because I kept it so small for so long. was able to make quick adjustments and learn from consumer feedback and retailer feedback and optimize the hell out of this machine. And now we've got four distributors and that's why we're going from like a hundred doors to a thousand by the end of the year. Um, yeah, that's. Low and slow and steady.

Adam Steinberg (25:51)
You're thinking ahead, clearly.

If you could go back and give yourself some advice on the first day you launched into the retailer number one, it sounded like it Foxtrot and then sounded like Arowan after that, like looking back, what would you say?

Lex Evan (26:07)
in terms of just retail strategy.

Adam Steinberg (26:10)
Yeah, retail strategy or ways you felt like you were prepared, but then you ended up not being as prepared. Maybe stuff you would have wanted to plan further ahead for or yeah, anything along those lines.

Lex Evan (26:17)
Yeah.

I would say because everything was reactive, I was rushed to do things. even as a designer who's a perfectionist, like I had a week to design our, our shelf packaging. Cause I had thought this would be online only for a year. and I didn't have time to make this design. Like I could have come up with this design years ago.

had I only been designer on the project, but because I was the founder and the formulator and the production manager and everything, I created such a basic retail tray that really wasn't working hard for us, but I had to get something out quickly. I would say, say no more until you're ready. Don't say yes just because the opportunity comes to you. That's not the best way to run a business.

You need to know where you want to go and how you're going to get there. Don't just say yes to people who give you free rides because they might not be driving in the direction that you want to go. I think is, I hope that analogy makes sense, but like, yeah.

Adam Steinberg (27:14)
Yeah, sorry, being intentional and having a

kind of a path you've laid out and sticking to that as much as you can and kind of sticking to your guns to a certain extent is what it sounds like.

Lex Evan (27:23)
Yeah.

When it comes to opportunities, you need to be the driver, not the passenger. Cause you, you're the one who knows where you're going. So make sure you give yourself ample time to be prepared for that. but grand scheme of things like day one, I would say don't sell when you factor, just find a code packer from the very beginning. which is scary because the volumes are going to be so high, but self manufacturing, you, get stuck and like,

Adam Steinberg (27:29)
Right.

Lex Evan (27:49)
You need to find a manufacturer, but you also need to still still self-manufacture. So your, your time is stretched out and things take longer because you're used to have to manage the everyday of your business. ⁓ whereas like, I didn't know it was going to take over a year to find the right co co-manufacturing partner because you need to find someone willing to do the difficult things that you're doing. so it just, it just adds more stress. Whereas if I still had my job.

Adam Steinberg (28:00)
Right.

Lex Evan (28:16)
Yeah, I'd be fine spending a year finding a co-manufactured to do it and get it right. I wouldn't have to worry about the stress of like running a business and making product while that's happening. It's all gone now. Like I'm, I'm smooth sailing now, but like it could have been easier, but at the same time, like I learned things I didn't know by doing all of that. there's wins and losses to both routes.

Adam Steinberg (28:26)
Sure, totally.

Yeah, no, that makes sense.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Shifting gears a little bit with your pretty extensive design background, leading design for projects like you mentioned, Neutrogena, Avino, Clean and Clear. Let's talk about packaging a bit more. If I came to you and told you I was launching a brand in the food and beverage space and this was my first foray into CPG, I'm about to kick off packaging design, what are three to five frameworks or tips you'd give me or things to watch out for that could potentially trip me up?

kicking this process off.

Lex Evan (29:11)
I would say the most important part of packaging design is understanding where that package is going to end up. and everyone thinks, it's just the shelf. Yes, but no, there are still like warehousing and the retail staff that's going to unbox your product and maybe store it in the back a little bit and then have to go and find it to put it on shelf. Make sure you're designing for every instance of someone touching your package.

there's also online and like, you don't want to have different packaging for online retail. You, you need to design something that works for every single instance. otherwise you're adding complexity that is unnecessary. eliminate. Sometimes you look at brands and you're like, why didn't they do this to the package? It would have been so much nicer or prettier or I don't know. And the answer is it adds a.

layer of risk in someone picking the wrong product when they're packaging up an order. So there's just the, all these extra lenses to evaluate packaging design. And if you don't hire a packaging designer with extensive experience designing packaging for all these scenarios, you're going to make mistakes. Like packaging is never about being pretty. It's about being effective.

And you just need someone who's been through it and has made mistakes so that you don't pay for them. And what that translates to is you're going to have to hire a more expensive person. Like, sure, you can pick a kid out of college and design school and say, design a pretty package. They're not going to have that 10 year experience of like,

The front of this is too short and it's the lip at shelf is covering it. So like, I just saved you six months of waiting to redo packaging, right? It's little nuance, things like that. Or even the material that you print on, like if this is stored frozen, this has to be water resistant because it's going to get condensation somehow. you need vetted packaging designers.

not graphic designers. And I that sounds like a weird thing to say, but graphic design is a big umbrella and there's different pillars underneath each one. And not every graphic designer is a packaging designer, but every packaging designer is a graphic designer.

Adam Steinberg (31:36)
Totally, yeah, you're speaking my language on that one. Similar scenarios, let's say I was a marketing leader at a seven figure brand where the majority of revenue and growth was coming from the retail side compared to DTC. And I told you we are considering a packaging refresh. What questions would you ask me that helped me confirm if this is the right strategy, whether we should even be considering a packaging refresh or not?

Lex Evan (32:01)
I would ask why. Is something not working? Have sales been dipping? Is there a new product on shelf that's impacting? You need to understand why and make sure you're updating your packaging for the right reasons. And that reason is never just aesthetics.

Maybe if you had a brand from the eighties and you're like, all right, we've been around for 40 years. Like we need to update. Okay, fine. But that still correlates back to like, your sales are not performing because you look like a dated brand. So it never boils down to aesthetics. It always boils down to what is in your environment and how your packaging design current or future is going to affect your performance against other products in that environment.

I always start with just an audit. Like show me everything that is around your product in retail stores and go from there.

Adam Steinberg (32:54)
Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And how do you balance the need for, you know, like a fresh look also with the importance of kind of keeping familiar brand elements for existing customers. So doesn't feel like you're alienating them also feels like it's something yet familiar.

Lex Evan (33:08)
That has been my primary objective for 10 years at Neutrogena. It's like, we want to launch all these new platforms, but we also have this design that we haven't touched in 40 years and the new stuff needs to tie back to the old stuff, but it needs to look new. And sometimes there just isn't a solution to that. And your new products force you to update the old stuff. when it comes to branding and design,

Any big design update should be tied to a bigger business update. So if you've got something new to say, if there's a new perspective, like that's when you update your logo or your maybe website with packaging, like, did you change ingredients? Did you suddenly go from like not being organic to organic?

talk to consumers, if there's like a misperception from your packaging, that's a good reason to update your packaging. I think someone I know was called out on Instagram recently because the product photography on the pouch did not match the actual product on the inside. I'm like, that's a good reason to update your packaging. And it could just be updating the photography, but that's still a packaging update.

Another big reason to update your packaging is just responding to what's happening around you on shelf. So if, if you're doing so well that you're knocking other brands off the shelf and then new brands pop up and their design is working more effectively, that's a good reason to update your packaging, but you have to understand that's the reason and then have clear goals and objectives about what your packaging update is going to reflect.

to overcome those hurdles, I guess, or I've said a lot of words.

Adam Steinberg (35:01)
Yeah,

no, that makes lots of sense. mean, maybe a bit more like some specific canaries in the past. When you think about some of the most cited game changing packaging refreshes that come to top of mind for people, whether it's RX bar or Celsius or maybe outly, you know, compared to ones that that fell flat, like why did some work and then some didn't from your perspective?

Lex Evan (35:24)
I don't know the full inner workings, but I have seen some posts recently talking about Poppy and RX bar and Oatley's redesigns. And someone weighed in and said like, yeah, as a consumer, that's likely what you see is like the package design. But what you don't see is the internal like years, year long project to understand the brand's roots, get a new perspective or new philosophy or go back to the original philosophy.

and how all that trickles down into the design. So I can say, or I can suspect that when a design falls flat, it's because that work didn't happen and they just went for aesthetics and it didn't really tie or communicate anything. But typically when things fall flat, it's because there's a misalignment of the objective and the execution.

suspect.

Adam Steinberg (36:17)
Yeah,

that makes total sense. That's great. That's super helpful. Shifting gears, a fair amount here. Let's talk about fundraising a bit. think you've got some exciting updates to share. know you were talking about that a little bit earlier, but yeah, I you got some exciting updates into where you're at in that process.

Lex Evan (36:31)
So fundraising has been a struggle for me because I don't have that network or I did not have that network when I first started. I also don't come from that background. So I didn't really know what it took to fundraise, what it took to convince people to invest in you. But now three years later, I have been going to events, I've been meeting people, I've been building my network. I've been talking to investors before I even wanted them to invest.

just to understand what their jobs are. Like how do you invest? What do you look for? When is the right time to invest? When is the right time to raise money? For us, that time is now. And I think I've, don't know if I've, actually I did publicly announce that we kicked off our seed round of a million dollars and half of it is committed or claimed, but it took three.

Adam Steinberg (37:19)
That's very exciting,

super exciting, congrats.

Lex Evan (37:22)
Thank you. It took three years of building relationships to have someone say, yes, we're going to lead your round.

Adam Steinberg (37:30)
So it sounds like for you in terms of what you've learned so far in terms of running a fundraising process is making sure you're kind of understanding who you're speaking to and understanding kind of what they're really looking for, really having an acrylic understanding of their roles and really what they look for. So you can kind of, I assume, maybe tailor your pitch and how you're kind of positioning the brand and kind of conform to what you actually get that understanding of what they're really looking for. Is that accurate to a certain extent?

Lex Evan (37:56)
I mean, yes, with, with pitching, you're like retailers, you need to understand their goals and objectives. And if you're investors, like what are their goals and objectives? No one's just throwing money around. They, they have a clear, perspective on what they think the future of in this case, food is going to be. And if most often they make that public, so go and learn and figure it out, and talk to them.

Adam Steinberg (38:01)
Right. Great point. Yeah.

Lex Evan (38:22)
I would say a lot of my success has been because I'm great to work with, not to toot my own horn, but I get that feedback a lot from retail partners, from ingredient partners. like, you just make everything so easy for us that we just have to say yes. Like last fall I did four collab limited edition holiday flavors.

And when I pitched each one of those brands to do a collab, I had a whole deck with like the marketing plan, the PR plan. I had visuals of all the photography. I'd sample like three versions of each flavor to send them where all they had to do was like, yes, send us the samples. We will taste it. If we like it, we'll pick one. And then it looks like you've got everything else mapped out. So there's literally nothing for us to do except maybe post.

or send an email. But the feedback from all of that was like, we will happily do this again with you because you make it all so easy. being great to work with is a superpower. And if you can talk to people and kind of convey that in your early relationship building, they're going to want updates from you. They're going to want to invest in you in the future because they like you as a person.

Adam Steinberg (39:22)
Underrated.

Yeah, absolutely. That totally makes sense. I think I saw you posted on something on LinkedIn like in the past week or two that you felt like Expo West really helped you prepare, propel this round forward. I have to imagine like up and coming brand owners that are getting ready to kick off round of fundraising, hoping to leverage a trade show or two. Would love to hear what your strategy was at Expo West. If you, you had one or you just, know, organically just talk to everyone and you found the right connections and if, and if not, you had a specific strategy, what that was.

Lex Evan (40:06)
Treat everyone with kindness and just don't have these wild expectations. think I've gone, this was my third year at Expo and I don't have a booth. All these other people have booths. Part of me understands that I'm not there to steal their spotlight. I'm just happy to be.

attending. And sure, I've got some samples in a bag that like, if it comes up for conversation, like, yeah, of course, I've got samples, like I'm at a food show.

There was no strategy for me. Like I didn't go into this and say like I'm I need to find investors Like I wasn't scanning badges. I just treated people like people and just hoped that I would talk to the right people And I did because I talked to everyone so like if you talk to enough people Enough of them are gonna know someone that can help you accomplish your goal. So Don't worry about who you're talking to and like if they're important enough to talk to you just

treat everyone with kindness because everyone who shows up to that trade show cares about food. Like everyone there is worth talking to. So don't be this like a-hole that only scans badges and like only talks to someone who they think is important. Like you don't know what people do at different companies. And most of the time the badge at expo doesn't align with who the person works for. So just be kind to everyone.

Adam Steinberg (41:30)
A great way to approach it. mean, it sounds like this round is going well. What's the easiest way for investors to get in touch if they're interested before it's too late?

Lex Evan (41:39)
Lex at Lexbakes.com.

Adam Steinberg (41:42)
All right, perfect, easy enough. All right, Lex, this has been awesome. Really great to spend some time with you, learning about Lexington Bakes and then the man behind the brand. You mentioned where investors can find you. Anywhere else you kind of want to shout out where people can find you and follow along with you and or the brand at all.

Lex Evan (41:57)
support brands directly, order from their websites. Ours is LexingtonBakes.com. We will soon be on Amazon, but only the oat bars. We are in Erwan, Lassen's Lazy Acres in LA, Foxtrot in Chicago. We're coming to hundreds of stores in New York and San Francisco soon.

Adam Steinberg (42:16)
Awesome. Everyone can't wait. Thanks, Lex.

Lex Evan (42:19)
Thank you.