Elizabeth Stein 0:00
Hi everyone. I'm Elizabeth Stein, founder, and CEO of Purely Elizabeth and this is life purely with Elizabeth, featuring candid conversations about how to thrive on your wellness journey.

This week's guest is Angela Vranich, co-founder and chief product officer of Little Spoon, the fastest-growing kid's food brand in the U.S. delivering millions of nutritious yet delicious meals to doorsteps to make parents’ lives easier and kids’ lives healthier. The first and only of its kind Little Spoon is revolutionizing the industry by offering a growing range of products and resources from babies’ first bites through their big kid years. In this episode, we talk about Angela’s journey which began with her own marketing agency promoting natural foods to identifying a gap in the baby food market and creating a DTC brand with her husband focused on reinventing the category with fresh baby food. Angela shares the challenges launching an innovative line, the common concerns parents face when feeding their kids, how they connect with their community through their ‘Is This Normal’ platform addressing questions like how to introduce new foods to kids, coping with picky eaters, and can you smell *1:20. Angela shares her experiences and strategies for building a great team and maintaining positive company culture, her role as Chief Product Officer, her daily morning routine, and the challenges and successes of working with her husband in the business. Keep listening to learn more.
Angela, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have this conversation today and to hear more of your startup story.

Angela Vranich 1:48
Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Elizabeth Stein 1:51
So let's start off with your personal journey. And what got you interested in the world of food and eventually starting Little Spoon?

Angela Vranich 2:02
Yes, well, growing up, I was always kind of interested in the world of food. In college, I actually started my first business which was food-related. So I had a marketing company for natural organic food and beverage brands. So I had several dozen independent contractors working for me around the country in college, you do have this Yeah, in college, started out as like, I was kind of like doing like brand ambassador stuff myself. And then got a few more people to work for me. And then it just really kind of took on a life of its own. It wasn't something that I was like, I'm gonna build this big business. But I mean, I had dozens of people working for me throughout the country eventually, because more brands would hear about me and then they'd needed store demos, or merchandising or whatever. So ended up fully running a business while I was in… I went to St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. It was balancing school and balancing running this business. And then after I graduated, I was like, okay, this has been really fun, but I don't want to be in the business of demos and Merchandising, and managing all these independent contractors, it was just a lot. And so I'd always been interested in television and maybe trying to work in TV in some respects. So I got a job at a production company, working on kind of food-related television shows, so Food Network, Travel Channel, and Cooking Channel, and working on a lot of the reality shows that were on those channels. Simultaneously, my now husband, who was then my boyfriend, we've been together for many, many years, we know each other from high school where we grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He had a food distribution company, he had moved out to San Francisco to run that company. One of the shows that I was on was on a break, and I was like, I'm gonna go to San Francisco and hang out and see what's out there. I Love San Francisco, didn't want to go back to Philadelphia after being out in California. And at the time, as I said, he had this distribution company where they were kind of finding these new and upcoming brands and distributing them into natural retailers like Whole Foods and Erawan. And I was always going to these trade shows with him kind of just like going from booth to booth and seeing what was new. And this was probably around like 2013 or 2014 when just I feel like the natural products industry was just kind of exploding then there were all kinds of brands, it was like a new and exciting time. It was such a cool time to be in that space. And so I noticed every show we'd go to, all these new brands, like really they shift toward fresh. Do you remember Blueprint Juice that was so popular? And they were selling $12 bottles of juice. It was just blowing my mind and they were flying off the shelves. And then the juice cleansing craze.

Elizabeth Stein 5:04
… had been starting out at that point, probably

Angela Vranich 5:07
Yeah, exactly. And it was just all of these businesses that were kind of like doing a fresh take on things. So there were there was the juice, there was pet food, there were dips, there were salad dressings, and a lot of things that you would traditionally buy in the center aisles of the grocery store were now being merchandised in the refrigerated section because consumers were looking for fresher options. And so it was really purely opportunistic that I landed on baby food. I was like, oh, I think it would be fun to start a food brand. I had a couple of other friends in this space who had started brands of their own. So I kind of like got this itch. And I just kind of like took a look around. It was like what's one category that hasn't really been disrupted and baby food was really this glaring category that had not changed in over 100 years, Gerber was still the dominant player in the market, there was kind of like a newer form factor, which was the pouch, but at the end of the day, it was still just like shelf-stable food cooked to super high temperatures, commercially sterile, really not the type of food that a lot of parents wanted to be feeding their kids as their first bites of food. And so I was like, Okay I think first baby food, I think there's an opportunity there. So got to work and just started working on an initial concept and trying to get it off the ground.

Elizabeth Stein 6:28
So did you have kids at the time?

Angela Vranich 6:32
No, I didn't have kids. And I still don't have kids. No, I did not have kids. I was 24 at the time. Um, I was definitely very self-conscious about the fact that I didn't have kids because I was like, I'm so far from having children of my own. I feel like I'm fresh out of college. I don't actually I don't feel comfortable telling women what they should. So I actually ended up teaming up with my other co-founder, and two other co-founders, one is my husband, Ben. He came on board. He's CEO now. And then we have a third co-founder named Michelle, she had like a fresh baby food delivery service in New York, and she was a mom of three. And she was kind of just got a very small scale, making fresh baby food and delivering it within her neighborhood is like a little business around New York. And we met through a mutual acquaintance. And she came on board and was kind of like our mom and was able to bring a lot of knowledge to the table early on in that respect.

Angela Vranich 7:32
I love that. Because it's funny. We always talked about what we do, I'm like, I don't have kids. I feel weird about doing something like that. So I love that you did it anyway, push through that. Because it shouldn't matter. Interesting. Want to kind of take a step back to college and your now husband? So you guys both were in food? And already dating? Or was that just coincidental? Or do you guys have this shared love? Like, where did that all stem from? It's pretty interesting that you both went in different ways.

Angela Vranich 8:08
It was kind of a shared passion, I guess you could say that his interests, rubbed off on me a little bit. He had a business starting like in high school, he was like a child prodigy entrepreneur, he had a water bottle brand and an energy drink brand. And then he'd started a yogurt brand with another one of our friends. And then simultaneously had the distribution business. So because of him, I was always kind of like, in and around this space. Anyway, and saw the opportunity when I was in college to really start a marketing company, and offer services to some of these brands in retail.

Elizabeth Stein 8:45
Having that marketing company actually must have really provided so much information for you. Because certainly at that time to know being in the stores and demoing that's like some of my greatest memories of starting the brand was being in Whole Foods demo, like multiple times a week. And it was such a valuable time to hear feedback from the consumer and really get those touch points, which I think today is like pretty different than… I don't know, we do demos I hear in there, but very different. But so for you in that position, what were some of the things that you really learned that then you took into building this brand?

Angela Vranich 9:21
There were a lot of things and it is interesting, you don't really see very many store demos nowadays, I guess maybe post COVID, they've kind of bundled, it feels like every time Yeah, but anyway, um, I would say like there were there were a couple of things. One was really gathering feedback from customers and being comfortable with rejection. I mean, when you're standing in a whole food store, like offering someone food, most of the time they're just like, “No,” or like if they don't like something. You learn kind of like the interpersonal skills of just like kind of communicating with people in the sales aspect of things, which is interesting. I think one of the other really important lessons that I learned was just like people management. So I had dozens of people working for me around the country. So managing schedules, managing, managing multiple personalities, managing people who maybe didn't work so well together. It was really just like a crash course in people management, and I was kind of just learning as I was going.

Elizabeth Stein 10:30
I would imagine, especially being young, that must have been really hard to manage all those people who are also part-time and contracted. And, yeah, a lot of headaches and drama along that. So you end up having this idea, that there's a real opportunity in baby food for fresh, what was the moment that you then took that idea and actually moved forward? And what did that look like? Because it's certainly much more complicated than putting together some flowers and a dry mix. And not that that's easy, but certainly harder.

Angela Vranich 11:08
Yeah, it was definitely a long road to the point whenever I was like, okay, I'm gonna start working on this too when we had our initial first product off of the line. It was unchartered territory, no one was doing fresh baby food at the time. And so we got the door slammed in our face many, many times from potential co-packers who just had no interest in working with us because it was a very sensitive population that we were making food for, they didn't want to take on the liability, obviously, we had no volume so right there, that eliminates don't want to work with you off the bat. We ended up finding this guy in Los Angeles who had a tamale factory. His name is Pascal. We got connected to him through the most random avenue of avenues like you meet one person and then introduce you to another part in like we did, we just like ended up like at Pascal's tamale trading one afternoon, he opens possibilities, yeah, open up possibilities, having all types of conversations. And so one thing that we needed a piece of equipment that we needed was a steamer to be able to steam vegetables before we were purifying them. And he had a massive steamer at this tamale factory. So he basically gave us a little space within his space, and we bought some of our own equipment, this is all like Bootstrap. So we bought some of our own equipment, built that out, we were using his labor and then got we're able to like getting an initial production setup off the ground or making 100 200 pound batches of baby food and hand filling containers. And then the other really challenging piece too was we wanted to use high-pressure processing on the product or HPP which was the technology that a lot of those fresh juice brands were using at the time and still use and we still use HPP today so it's basically an alternative to thermal pasteurization, so uses cold water pressure to kill harmful and potential spoilage bacteria in the food. And so to use HPP you have to have packaging that can hold up to 87,000 pounds per square inch of water pressure on your product. I mean today if you go out and try to source packaging that's compatible with HPP you cannot you would have no trouble finding it but back then it was no one was really making containers or they were very few and far between to find a small enough container that would be compatible for this food technology that we wanted to use. So we had to get custom packaging made. I was like I had also just a cross Crash Course and plastics. Ivery randomly now know a lot about more than I'd like to know about plastic and resin and custom packaging and all of that but yeah, we really get custom packaging all the equipment we have like a whole quality and food safety consultancy come in and set up a whole plan for us in this kitchen to make sure you know we were doing everything that we could to make the safest product possible and it took like it took a couple of years before we were able to really have you know final product and get it off the ground and we initially thought that we would launch the product and retail that was the plan because my husband at the time had the distribution business and I was like why not. I'll make this product and it'll be easy, he did all refrigerated distribution. So it was a perfect fit. Then we did end up getting approved in a couple of weeks. We exhibited a few trade shows Natural Products Expo West Expo East. We ended up getting approved in a couple of regions of Whole Foods. Really great. We're gonna launch in Whole Foods, this is gonna be. So exciting. And then just got caught up in this like an endless cycle of, okay, well, we need this piece of paperwork from you, we need this in order for you, because obviously, fresh baby food was a new product for them. And they wanted to make sure that we were on the up and up with all of our quality and food safety stuff and really just got stuck in this endless cycle of being passed around people, their corporate office, some this person quit, and then you get passed to this person. And like it took forever. And so we had the finished product. And we were like, okay, we don't want to wait around to be able to sell this product into retail anymore. And we think there's a real opportunity in direct-to-consumer. And so that's when we decided to build a business online, and we still don't sell in any retail. We're entirely direct consumers via our website, littlespoon.com.

Elizabeth Stein 15:51
Wow. Really, the mistake or the long lead time from Whole Foods ended up being such a silver lining for you guys to really pivot the business and just become a DTC brand. I mean, they just said like you're in, you might be in a very different position today.

Angela Vranich 16:09
Yeah, I mean, it was definitely it would have been challenging back then anyway because there was no destination for fresh baby food. I mean, we would have gotten stuck in the produce section or the yogurts, or like you, there was really no specific area where the product could be merchandise. So I think people would have initially had trouble finding it. And I think at Little Spoon, we're recreating this brand for the modern parent, we want to make it very easy for parents to know what to feed their kids and kind of had this moment where it was like, okay people are doing their research online, like they are going online, baby food is a premeditated purchase. Like, there were a couple of times when we did like in-store demos at some smaller stores. And so you do a four-hour demo. Within that four hours, maybe like three or four people that walked through the door, have babies that are like within that very narrow window of time where they're eating baby food, which is 6 to 12 months, and on the spot, they're not just gonna be like, “Oh, let me just try this new random baby food.” They know what they're buying, they know what their kids let their kids bikes, and they've already done their research. So they're going in knowing what they want to buy. With online, parents are doing their research online. And we were just like, we want to be the first thing that comes up whenever they're searching for baby food online. And we can make it very easy for them to purchase this product. And obviously, baby food is a repeat purchase. So a subscription model just made sense for us. At that time, when we decided to launch GTC, we had like kind of a small set of angel investors who when they originally invested in the business, were invested in it under the guise that we would be selling this into retail. And when we told them, we wanted to go direct to consumer, they were just like, “You're crazy. This is not what we signed up for. This is not the business that we invested in.” We're like, “No, we think it'll work.”

Elizabeth Stein 18:03
And were they okay with that?

Angela Vranich 18:06
They were like, Okay, I mean, we invested in you, we trust you. But this wasn't supposed to be part of the business plan. And so we were like, “No, we think it'll work.” And we ended up selling a million meals in our first year. Online only we launched in 2017. So that was really a moment where it was like, okay, I think this has legs. This is working. And we're gonna continue to build the brand this way.

Elizabeth Stein 18:35
That's amazing. So what do you think initially? What worked? Is it that this was such a unique category, or a unique product within the category that just like quickly resonated? Or what did you find Was there something in particular that was a big break or press moment or something that really catapulted the business?

Angela Vranich 18:53
What we were offering at the time, and what we still offer is just a unique and modern take on baby food and a way to feed your child. Millennials were becoming parents back then they were looking for something different than what they grew up on, which was jars of baby food. So we were really intentional in the way that we built the brand out and the way we communicated to parents because ultimately, the parent is the customer. It's not the baby. And so a lot of old-school things you see in the baby set are very cheesy with baby-sounding names and really cheesy-looking characters, but the baby's not the one making the purchase. And so we really developed like a brand voice and branding that had kind of this modern, fun, cool vibe that I think resonated and continues to resonate with this set of young parents who are ultimately our customers.

Elizabeth Stein 19:56
So for somebody who is a new parent and they maybe have their parents telling them like, oh, just be them, Gerber. Like, this is what you grew up on. Where do you start with someone? What should they be looking for and like help educate our listeners about what they should be eating and feeding their babies?

Angela Vranich 20:15
At Little Spoon, we really pride ourselves on having just a wide menu of many, many different ingredients. So we have a lot of interesting varietals of vegetables, and fruits that maybe you couldn't find in your local grocery store and maybe wouldn't feel comfortable incorporating yourself at home. So, like things like Pattaya and Japanese sweet potato, we really try to incorporate a wide variety of interesting ingredients and interesting combinations. So we have over 50 SKUs of baby food ranging from stage one which are super smooth purees all the way up to stage six which are pureed with really thick texture to help that transition to table food. And so I think offering a wide variety of ingredients is key because it's proven to help picky eating down the road and really just like a wide variety of textures to maximize exploration. And that's really what we think about whenever we're building out our line of baby food, but today we offer far more than baby foods. So we have grown with our customers to cater up to age seven. So we have food all the way from baby to big kids. So we have our line of baby food. We have a line called vitals, which is transitioned to table foods, it's little cut-to-size pieces of food. We have a line of ready-to-eat meals for toddlers called plates. We have a line of smoothies, which are fresh fruit and vegetable periods in this pouch designed to be taken on the go. I have to send you a box. Actually, they're really good with granola on top. Well, yogurt granola. And of course, we stock your granola in our office. It's like our go-to. But yeah, and then we And then most recently, last year, we launched a whole line of products for like the school-aged child. So healthier, like build-it-yourself lunches designed to be taken in lunch boxes and a whole line of healthy, shelf-stable snacks.

Elizabeth Stein 22:17
Amazing. I mean, the wonderful thing about being a DTC brand is having that close connection with your consumers, and your community. So I'm sure you're getting that feedback. What do you hear most right now that they're wanting and sort of what's next on the horizon for you?

Angela Vranich 22:34
Yeah, I mean, one of the great things about building a company DTC is that you do have that direct line to your consumers and we have a really passionate group of parents that purchase from us so it's really great because we get their feedback in real time. And so if there's something that needs to be changed, or we need to tweak, or something that is really trending and like all the people are writing into us about we can pretty quickly iterate and act on that. I think like I said, I think what's really resonating with them people love the wide variety of ingredients. Another thing that we do, I mean everything that we do we try to make you know as healthy as possible. So for like our line of ready to heat, kids meals for example we have macaroni and cheese but the sauce has hidden butter, nuts, and carrots in it or we have chicken nuggets but the chicken nugget has kale, cauliflower, and carrots in it with like a pinko Chia breading. So parents really love that we're kind of maximizing nutrition in every way possible. Because as kids grow, obviously, and that's also one of the challenges that we deal with, they become picky and they can start rejecting foods. So really trying to make foods that kids love and crave but that parents can also feel good about feeding.

Elizabeth Stein 23:54
So as having a DTC brand, you get that side but another side to what you're offering the value to your community is I think around the education that you provide. And so I know you have a pretty extensive area of the website where you're providing a lot of information where do you find what are some of those top questions that parents are asking that you could share around any tips with us today?

Angela Vranich 24:20
Really, we have we have a ton of questions that come in about feeding so we have a whole digital community arm to our business called Is this normal? And Is This Normal was really born out of parents reading into us asking all types of questions, not just questions related to their kids and what to feed them but parenting-related questions, questions related to their marriage, or questions related to getting their kids into school and like all types of things? And so we have a whole digital community. We have a Facebook group and website where we have articles and answer all these types of questions. Since we get a lot of feeding questions and so especially from new parents and so we have a ton of resources on there that can offer support for how to introduce certain types of foods to your kids, what to do if they're rejecting foods, what to do if your kids are being picky, we have an endless amount of resources. And we also have some like other articles, too, it's really funny. One of our top-performing articles, and is this normal is When can I start smoking weed again after having a baby, It is just really interesting to see parents are looking for all types of information from us, not just about what they should feed their kids.

Elizabeth Stein 25:46
Where are people writing these questions?

Angela Vranich 25:48
I love this. We have we actually have a little anonymous box on our, website, where people can just like write in what's on their minds or what burning questions they have. And we have a whole panel of experts that respond to them.

Elizabeth Stein 26:04
So what is the answer when they can start smoking?

Angela Vranich 26:08
Oh, that's a great question. I should read the article myself.

Elizabeth Stein 26:16
And see what other fun is this normal questions that there are in there. What's been one of the one or two most surprising lessons that you've learned in the business over the years?

Angela Vranich 26:33
Surprising lessons, I would say. Definitely the people management aspect of things just like the importance and value of building out a great team, and having a culture that resonates with people on your team. You take business management classes in college, and it just seems like very black and white. We have a team of over 70 people now. And so when you're managing multiple personalities, and people are working together, it can be challenging at times. But I think one thing that's really important for us is company culture and team culture, and making sure that we're operating the business in a super transparent way, and that everyone feels really good about the common goals that we're working towards. And so, to me, I think that's probably the most valuable lesson I've learned is really just the relationships that you build with your team and surrounding yourself with people that you trust and capable people to ultimately work toward a shared common goal, because as a founder, when you're starting, you're doing everything yourself, you're running the operations, you're running, the marketing, you're doing everything. And so it's been a really important lesson to learn to like to be able to let go of some of that stuff and trust around you. No, it's not always easy. I mean, I do enjoy being in the weeds. But you gotta let it go.

Elizabeth Stein 28:09
Yeah, for sure. So we'd love just to dive deeper into that as someone who's in the same boat as you, and definitely, it's hard to let go of those things. But having an amazing team and a growing team, I imagine that this is been probably a lot of growing pains over the years. It's not like you hire one person, and then a year later, you're hiring another. You go through these growth spurts. And so how have you really navigated that? And how do you hold on to that culture and make sure that all those hires are great hires, and anything around that that you've learned?

Angela Vranich 28:45
Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. I think abundant communication, transparency with the team, and celebrating everything. We have these little small wins all the time. And it's easy to just be like, Oh, whatever, like we hit a new sales goal, or we hit a new that but really like celebrating those things and celebrating the people around you. So one of the things that I love a little spin that we do that just like happened very organically is we have this award that we give. So we have an all-hands huddle every week, every Tuesday. And we have this award that we do called the boss award. And so the boss award was born out of one day in our old office when we were like a team of eight people. Our Wi-Fi wasn't working because that office was really janky and we've been to a co-working space and there was a paperweight that said boss on it. And one of the girls on our team thought it was really funny, and she took it and so we still have this paperweight from this co-working space that we went to this one afternoon. And now every week with our team of 70, still we have what's called the boss award and so people on the team, one person will be like the boss for the week. And at the end of our old team huddle, someone will pass the boss award to another member of the team. And tell everyone what company values they embody and why they think that they shouldn't be the boss for the week. And so it started out as kind of a funny thing, especially because there were only like, six or seven of us giving the boss award. So every week, it was pretty uneventful, because it was more like multiple times in a month. But now it's turned into this really nice tradition, where it's like a great way for the greater team to recognize all the hard work that everyone's doing. And I think just giving people recognition about their contribution. Because whenever you're such a big team, not everyone gets to see what everyone else is doing and how they're contributing to the business. So I think that's been a really great way for us to just build culture and friendships.

Elizabeth Stein 30:53
I love that. That's such a fun idea. And it's like, everyone just wants to be recognized. That’s one way to do that. And that’s very natural and not this contrived, awkward thing.

Angela Vranich 31:06
That's funny. Yeah.

Elizabeth Stein 31:09
So as you have been in this growth mode, what do you think about yourself? What are you working on personally or professionally? Because I think as a co-founder and entrepreneur, your whole mindset is this growth, right? You're looking for a part of you to grow personally and professionally. So how does that look like for you today?

Angela Vranich 31:33
I'm our chief product officer. So I'm in charge of like, all of our physical product development, product innovation, consumer insights, all of that. Professionally, really just focused on continuing to grow continuing to innovate, coming out with new and exciting products, but also balancing that with our existing portfolio of over 120 skews off, over many, many product lines. Obviously, they can continue challenges as we grow. And we scale managing what we have and also working to launch new things for our customers. Personally, I don't know how to answer that question. Personally, one thing that I've been doing that's been fun, but also very stressful is my husband and I three years ago, bought a house in Miami. It's a 100-year-old home that needed renovation. And it's been the most nightmare renovation ever. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. And everyone always says it will cost you twice as much money and take you twice the amount of time and that's the exact case with this house. But I will say it has been a crash course in all things like renovating houses. I mean, I'm not renovating it myself. We have someone down there that's managing the project for us. But it's definitely been an education, everything from plumbing issues to electrical issues to mold and leaks and everything. But I'd say that's been what takes up my time whenever I'm not working on Little Spoon is like managing all of the back and forth with that. So I see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Elizabeth Stein 33:41
That’s exciting. Good lessons in business. All these things can go wrong and just putting out fires and days that things go great.

Angela Vranich 33:50
Yeah. I do credit a lot of things that I've learned with Little Spoon and running my own business that I've definitely carried through to this personal home renovation project.

Elizabeth Stein 34:04
What do you do in your day to feel your best, and set you up for success? Do you have any morning rituals or night rituals?

Angela Vranich 34:12
So morning rituals, I absolutely have to have like my alone time in the morning so I'll sit down with an espresso I'll open up my phone open up my computer, answer any emails, I'll do any personal work that needs to be done. Look at my calendar for the day. It's just a great way for me to clear my head and get started for the day. I cannot just immediately start my day and I need that time to myself. And it's so important to me to work out in the morning. It just really like makes me feel my best. It's like my morning meditation. And that's my me time in the morning and it really materially affects like the rest of my day there, rest of my week if I'm able to agree in that in the morning. And so I really, really try to force myself to do that. Because, yeah, it definitely makes me the best version of myself. I love all types of workouts. I live in New York. I live in Tribeca. So I love running along the park on the West Side Highway when it's warm outside. I live next to Barry's Bootcamp. So I go there a lot. It's hardcore. I really come to enjoy it. But I also just love a chill Pilates class, all types of things.

Elizabeth Stein 35:37
How's it been working with your husband?

Angela Vranich 35:39
It's been good. I would say overall, it's been good.

Elizabeth Stein 35:43
What lessons can you share for those who might be considering it? Or currently are and having issues? Yeah,

Angela Vranich 35:49
A lot of people ask this question. It's funny because it gets all I've known for a really, really long time. But I would say we definitely balanced each other out. We have our areas of the business that we each own. And we're very communicative. We're both good at giving feedback and taking constructive feedback. So it's worked really well for us. It seems like we're also both pretty good at compartmentalizing things. And so if it's a night where we don't want to be thinking about work, or if it's like the weekend, we're both pretty, pretty good at kind of just compartmentalizing and talking about something else, or focusing on whatever else it is that we're doing. I think working with him, especially building a business, it's kind of nice having someone else because he completely understands. I understand what he's going through, and he understands what I'm going through. So if we're on vacation, and he is on the phone with our lawyer at 7 pm, I can't really get upset. Whereas if we weren't in the same boat, I would definitely like to be extremely annoyed at times because work permeates personal life when you don't want it to sometimes, but that's just part of the job.

Elizabeth Stein 37:15
No, I mean, that would make it I feel like so much easier. In reality. Are there ever times that you want to turn it off? And like he doesn't and he's like that talk about that. And you're like, I've just had enough like, I can't talk about this any longer.

Angela Vranich 37:31
Yeah. There are times and usually when I say that he's just like, “Okay.”

Elizabeth Stein 37:38
You have your boundaries. All right, we're gonna move into some rapid-fire q&a. Three things that you're currently loving.

Angela Vranich 37:54
Okay, so my LED red light mask, I'm obsessed. I just love it. I feel like it really does wonders for my skin.

Elizabeth Stein 38:03
Which mask is it? And how often do you use it? And for what amount of time?

Angela Vranich 38:07
Great questions. Okay, so it's actually a mask. This is an interesting story. We also become very good at sourcing things from other countries and so it's actually a mask that I found on Alibaba because I wanted red light and near-infrared light. And I got it for a great price and I've influenced everyone in our office to buy once we literally imported 26 Red Light masks and we're passing them around a little bit to girls in our office, but I use 10 minutes red light, 10 minutes near-infrared light. Probably three to four times a week. I love just at the end of the day, relaxing.

Elizabeth Stein 38:46
If somebody wants to buy this. Any tips to find it?

Angela Vranich 38:52
I mean, there are many on Alibaba. But yeah, DM me and I'll send you the link to them.

Elizabeth Stein 39:02
Alright, that's our number one favorite.

Angela Vranich 39:05
I love pajamas. Like I just love a pajama set. I've been enjoying this brand called Skin lately. They have it's like organic cotton. They're just really soft and nice. And I just love putting on pajamas and relaxing. Not to be confused with Skims. Not a Skim brand, although I'm sure she makes great pajamas, but it's called Skin. I love it. And then third. There's a pizza place that just opened close to me in Soho. It's called Lucia Pizza, Soho, but they also have a location in Brooklyn. I think it's the best pizza in New York. If anyone's listening to this, you live in New York, try Lucia Pizza. It's because I walk past it every day and it's like, oh, it smells so good. I get a vodka pizza with pepperoni.

Elizabeth Stein 40:05
We might have to stop there. Favorite Words to live by.

Angela Vranich 40:10
You can sleep when you’re dead. Just go out, have fun, go to the party, sleep when you’re dead. Take care of yourself. But say yes to things and just have fun. That's one thing I've been trying to do more.

Elizabeth Stein 40:24
I like that. Favorite productivity hack.

Angela Vranich 40:29
Productivity hack, I honestly would say it's my quiet time in the morning, just with my espresso answering emails, it's like really my reset time for the day to make sure that I am able to knock everything off my to-do list.

Elizabeth Stein 40:44
Favorite book or podcast for growth.

Angela Vranich 40:47
So this is a completely honest answer. And I really don't read that many books or listen to very many podcasts because they don't have time. And so if I do have time to read a book, I'm on vacation and it's like a trashy beach read.

Elizabeth Stein 41:03
Let’s pick a favorite trashy beach read.

Angela Vranich 41:05
I don't know I can't think of anything off the top of my head. But podcasts, I love listening to podcasts that have other founders on them and hearing their stories. I mean like how I built this is obviously a great one that I always turn on if I'm driving, driving in the car.

Elizabeth Stein 41:20
Favorite business moment.

Angela Vranich 41:24
So there are many favorite business moments I would say. Most recently my favorite business moment was late last year around back-to-school time we did a product launch for our new line of products which were these healthy building-yourself lunches and our healthy takes on kids' classic snacks from the 90s. And so the whole product launch was 90s-themed. We launched 15 New skews and a day across five product lines. It was honestly like the craziest sprint our team has ever done. And there were times leading up to that launch where people just wanted to kill each other because everyone was so freaking stressed out. And when we finally launched those products, we did this big launch we had like these all these like 90 celebrities do this fun like a promo video for us with the products. And then we threw a 90s-themed, like rager party in our office where everyone dressed in all 90s attire, and we were listening to 90s and early 2000s music. We brought in a bartender and it was just so fun because we were all just enjoying the fruits of our labor. We all felt like the weight of the world was lifted off our shoulders, and the product launch was a success. And it was just hilarious because we were all dressed in 90s and early 2000s clothing. So that was one of my favorite moments I would say recently.

Elizabeth Stein 42:44
That sounds so fun. It's all about celebrating those moments. And lastly, what is your number one non-negotiable to thrive on your wellness journey?

Angela Vranich 42:55
I would say exercise like I really just love getting my heart rate up and exercising in the morning. It really just makes me feel like the best version of myself. It's such an important part of my routine.

Elizabeth Stein 43:10
Love it. Angela, thank you so much for being on today. In closing, where can everybody find you? And if there's anything else you haven't shared.

Angela Vranich 43:18
Yeah, so if you're interested in checking out a little spin on our products, you can find us at littlespoon.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn and on Instagram I love hearing from everyone with questions or if you need advice or anything, love hearing from people so feel free to reach out.

Elizabeth Stein 43:40
Amazing. Thanks so much for being here.

Angela Vranich 43:42
Thank you for having me.

Elizabeth Stein 43:45
Thanks so much for joining me and living purely with Elizabeth. I hope you feel inspired to thrive on your wellness journey. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to rate subscribe, and review. You can follow us on Instagram at purely underscore Elizabeth to catch up on all the latest. See you next Wednesday on the podcast.