Issue #34: Talking to Good Girl Snacks Co-Founder, Leah Marcus 🥒
LOVE a brand that builds in public.
A few weeks back, I teased an upcoming interview with the co-founder of a viral CPG brand. This week, I’m sharing my conversation with Leah Marcus, co-founder of Good Girl Snacks, the brand behind the viral Hot Girl Pickles.
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Leah and I actually went to high school together, where we both worked on the school magazine and where we first developed a love for storytelling, creative work, and building brands. It’s so cool to see the evolution from those days working on our magazine layout together to Leah’s work now at Good Girl Snacks.
Let’s dive into the interview to hear about how Leah and her co-founder, Yasaman, started Good Girl Snacks, building in public, and what they’re doing to sustain growth.
Chatting with Leah ✨
CA: Let’s start with a little bit about your background. How did you and Yasaman come to start Good Girl Snacks?
LM: Yasaman and I were both working our first jobs out of college, I was at a tech startup and Yasaman was working in the art space – we both found ourselves extremely unsatisfied after about a year and were nose deep in our phones all day. We were texting nonstop and scrolling incessantly on TikTok, when we found a pattern: girls eating pickles online??? It sounds crazy, but there was a combined 9B views on the #pickles and #pickle combined.
Yasaman and I started doing research and one day she just texted me and said, "Why don't we start a pickle company?" We immediately started brainstorming names and bought a domain a few days later. It took us a few months to decide to officially quit our jobs to do this, but it was the best decision we could've ever made (although quite a crazy one).
CA: You have taken a really strong social-first approach to your brand. You’re also building in public on your social channels. Can you share a little more about that strategy?
LM: I was working in growth and marketing in the startup I was at and I learned so much about the power of social media. I was a comms major at USC and am Gen Z, so I obviously already knew this to a certain degree, but it wasn't until I learned about SEO and algorithms that I realized how much of a tool social media really was.
When we first started the company, Yasaman and I had a conversation and I was just like, "Dude, we're just gonna have to do this and put our faces out there." We practiced for a few weeks before starting to post on Oct 1, 2023 -- we've posted everyday since then and have amassed 40k+ on IG and 10k+ on TikTok.
Yasaman always says that it was a gift not knowing anything about the food and beverage industry because we came in with a fresh perspective, and she's right: no one in the industry has really built in public other than Mid-Day Squares, so we accidentally paved a path for a lot of other food companies.
People nowadays also just like knowing the face behind the brand, plus there's now an increase in curiosity around entrepreneurship, so the content we were putting out just resonated. And I mean, the hook we used alone [was], "We're two best friends in our early twenties who quit our jobs to start a pickle company.” – that within itself just got people's attention. It's a pretty crazy sentence, I'll admit, but to us, that was just our life.
[Building in public] is how we went viral; people are nosey and curious, so it works. We keep our private lives off of vlogs and only show moments that pertain to the business.
CA: How do you work to sustain the virality that you've experienced in your early days?
LM: It's really difficult to sustain the virality, especially with algorithms changing constantly, but we try to keep up with trends and listen to our community as much as possible to keep feeding the interest they have. We always ask, “Does this video add to someone's life?" and "Would I scroll past this if I was on social media?" and try to build content off of those questions.
CA: What was the process of forming Good Girl Snacks' brand identity?
LM: Yasaman and I worked really closely on the brand prior to hiring our good friend, Sofia who owns Playhouse, a production agency, which then connected us to Gina Guash Team, the design group in Barcelona that made our vision come to life. Yasaman and I started by creating Pinterest boards which served as a medley of brands that inspire us, movie posters, foreign food packaging, editorial photos etc.
We also worked on a color palette we really loved and just gave very clear instructions to our team: we wanted doodles – one representing Good Girl Snacks [..] and one that represented Hot Girl Pickles, but he couldn't look too much like a pickle because we wanted to portray how different we were to other pickle brands.
CA: What have been some of your favorite parts of starting your company and your proudest moments?
LM: Seeing the product come to life and starting to sell a product, which we believe is the best on the market yet, was SO FUN. We also only did it in 9 months and kept going viral, which further gave us validation for what we were doing and that really made us feel as though we were on top of the world. Also, endless amounts of pickles, duh.
Selling out in our first 2 months was really crazy. We also had people waiting to order BEFORE we launched our pre-order back in February – we were literally setting up the website to go live and got orders before announcing we were live. That was so exciting. We're now entering a really fun new phase of the business and entering retail in the next few months, which will definitely change the trajectory of our business. We also love sending gifts out to influencers and watching the content they make with them, that's always exciting.
CA: What have been some challenges with the company?
LM: We're one of the only organic pickle brands on the market. Organic pickles only grow in certain seasons or out of the country, so it's been really hard organizing productions. We've also just had bad luck with weather taking out all of our crops, or our cucumbers being placed in the wrong type of truck and therefore, ruining thousands of pounds of cucumbers. It's crazy. We also didn't really know what we were doing at first so we made a ton of mistakes as it relates to production, packaging etc. Now, we're starting to get the hang of things, but in reality, operations are always the hardest part of running a food and beverage company. We're also starting to add new flavors, new products and also scaling all of our productions to enter retail, which is a whole other beast we have to face.
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CA: How did you learn about production and operations?
LM: We have consultants that have been guiding and teaching us since the beginning. This is definitely an investment but allowed us to avoid making expensive mistakes.
CA: What are a few brands that you’ve been admiring recently, and why?
LM: Absolutely love the Sauz team! They are revolutionizing pasta sauce, which is an aisle completely dominated by legendary companies and already has some brands that fit the 'all-American household brand' mold. They came in as Gen-Zers with new packaging, clean ingredients, fun flavors and are absolutely crushing it in retail. They're in thousands of doors after just a year or two of being in business, and I feel they really paved the way for other Gen Z F&B brands to enter the space. They gave us the courage to do what we're doing!
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CA: What’s something that you’ve purchased recently and loved?
LM: I will say, Yasaman and I are both huge Rhode fans. Not only for the products and queen Hailey herself, but just for the marketing geniuses behind the brand. When we saw how insane their campaign was pre-launching their blushes this summer, we had to pay our respects and buy ALL of them.
CA: What are your hopes for the future of Good Girl Snacks?
LM: We want to be Gen Z's household brand. We are looking to expand into new products in the next few months and the years ahead, which hopefully will kickstart our journey toward this goal. “Awakening sleepy aisles” is the motto we go by.
Thank you so much, Leah! Everyone, go order your Hot Girl Pickles here.
Very very very cool! I don't even like pickles but I see myself being one of their consumers for other (future) snacks. It's always nice to see the BTS of brands and honestly it makes me want to have my own CPG brand so I can create nice visuals & branding.
Literally one of my favorite brands right now! They’re crushing it ❤️