Podcast
Unit Economics
Hosted by The Unit Economics Podcast · EN
The real mechanics behind your favorite brands. Conversations with founders on how products are designed, manufactured, priced, and distributed — with a focus on the decisions, economics, and tradeoffs behind the scenes. Hosted by Josh Stabinsky.
🎧 New episodes every week.
🌐 More at uepod.com
Want to get in touch? hello@uepod.com
52episodes
Episodes
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[Seremoni] Saif Khawaja
Apr 2800:42:11Tap to summarizeOn today’s episode, I sit down with Saif Khawaja, founder and CEO of Shinkei Systems and Seremoni, two companies that together form a vertically integrated seafood business, where Shinkei builds robots that change how fish are handled right after they’re caught (resulting in longer shelf life and better quality) and Seremoni is the brand and standard under which that fish is sold.This was, without a doubt, one of the most compelling conversations I've had on the show to date. We talk about the inspiration behind starting the business, the early days of building hardware that could actually run on boats, and how that’s turned into a system now being deployed across vessels in the U.S., with a plan to sit on roughly 25 by the end of the year.We also get into the mechanics of how the business actually works - why their machines are deployed for free, where they actually make money in the system, the decision to buy a processing plant, what it looks like to work with distributors, restaurants, and retailers, and how all of it ties back to controlling quality from the moment the fish is caught.I learned so much during my conversation with Saif, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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[Fjord] Gabe Turner
Apr 2200:49:26Tap to summarizeOn today’s episode, I sit down with Gabe Turner, co-founder of Fjord, a floating sauna and cold plunge experience built on the water in Sausalito.In this conversation, we talk about how the business actually came together, from early experiments with a mobile sauna to navigating an 18-month permitting process across multiple agencies and ultimately building their first unit in the Bay using repurposed materials.We also get into how the experience is designed, including why they chose to keep it simple, root it in nature, and avoid layering on additional services typically associated with spas.We spend time on how the business works today, from session structure and capacity to pricing, and what changed when a model that was expected to be difficult to fill ended up fully booked from day one.Gabe also walks through how they are thinking about expansion, the complexities around scaling business like theirs, and how they plan to grow without compromising the core experience.I learned so much during my conversation with Gabe, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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[Honey Dept.] Noah Phillips
Apr 1500:52:41Tap to summarizeOn today’s episode, I sit down with Noah Phillips, founder of Honey Department, a recently launched brand selling creamed honey in a tube.Honey Department started with a pretty simple observation: everyone uses honey, but almost no one thinks about the product or the brand, and it’s still mostly sold the same way it always has been.But what looked like a pretty straightforward idea quickly turned into a much more complex product and supply chain for Noah to develop.We walk through the decision to use creamed honey so the product would actually work in a tube, how he built a supply chain that runs from a co-op in Mexico to an apiary in Texas to a separate co-manufacturer, and what it took to go from zero to a finished product in a category with very little standardization.Lastly, we also spend a good amount of time on branding and positioning, as it's a huge part of this story.I learned a lot during my conversation with Noah, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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[Something Sweet] Brittney Cook
Apr 1000:39:50Tap to summarizeOn today’s episode, I sit down with Brittney Cook, co-founder and CEO of Something Sweet, a frozen dessert brand built around pre-portioned, ready-to-bake brown butter cookie dough.In this conversation, we talk about what it looked like to turn a family recipe into a real CPG business with no prior food background, the challenge of scaling something as technical as brown butter without losing what made the product special, and why Something Sweet chose to build around frozen dough rather than refrigerated or pre-baked cookies.We also get into the realities of shipping a frozen product DTC, breaking into retail from scratch, why velocity matters more than just piling up doors, and how the team has tried to stay disciplined around growth, distribution, and SKU expansion as the business has scaled.I learned a lot during my conversation with Brittney, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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[Sway] Julia Marsh
Apr 800:49:11Tap to summarizeOn today’s episode, I sit down with Julia Marsh, co-founder and CEO of Sway, a materials company using seaweed to build compostable replacements for plastic packaging.In this conversation, we talk about why flexible plastic is such a difficult category to replace, how Julia went from a background in packaging design to building a company around seaweed as a feedstock, and what it actually takes to turn a raw natural material into something that can run on traditional plastic manufacturing equipment.We also get into sourcing seaweed globally, the challenge of working within legacy industrial systems without compromising the long-term mission, why existing infrastructure was such a critical part of the strategy, and what demand looks like from brands trying to move away from conventional plastic without sacrificing performance.I learned so much during my conversation with Julia, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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[MADRE] Shay Carrillo
Apr 200:35:22Tap to summarizeOn today’s episode, I sit down with Shay Carrillo, Founder & CEO of Madre Linen, a home goods brand focused on building a fully traceable, ethically sourced linen supply chain from the ground up.In this conversation, we talk about how the business actually came together, starting with hand-sewn napkins and an early wholesale order from Heath Ceramics that forced Shay to figure out manufacturing almost overnight.We also get into how linen is produced at a material level, what it takes to source fabric with a transparent supply chain, and why she ultimately built a new brand after realizing she couldn’t trace where her original materials were coming from.We spend time on the economics of producing domestically, how tariffs and input costs impact margins, and why wholesale, despite reaching over 100 stores, ultimately didn’t work as a profitable channel.Shay also walks through how she’s thinking about distribution today across DTC, rentals, and B2B, and what needs to happen operationally to grow the business from here.I learned so much during my conversation with Shay, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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[Laurel's Coffee] Isabel Washington
Mar 3100:49:20Tap to summarizeOn today’s episode, I sit down with Isabel Washington, Founder & CEO of Laurel's Coffee, a canned ready-to-drink latte brand built around A2 dairy.In this conversation, we talk about what led Isabel to bet on A2 milk as a core ingredient, why she saw a gap between what people are actually ordering in coffee shops and what exists on shelf, and how she went from idea to launching in Erewhon in a matter of months.We also get into the realities of building a beverage business from scratch, including early production decisions, slotting fees, demo strategy, pricing and promo mechanics, and the operational tradeoffs behind scaling quickly into retailers like Whole Foods.I learned so much during my conversation with Isabel, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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[Loftie] Matt Hassett
Mar 2500:46:34Tap to summarizeOn today’s episode, I sit down with Matt Hassett, Founder and CEO of Loftie, a consumer sleep tech company best known for its design-forward, connected alarm clock aimed at helping people use their phones less and sleep better at night.In this conversation, we talk about how the business actually got off the ground, including what it took to move from an initial concept into a physical product, how Matt got the first units manufactured and into customers’ hands, and what it looked like to build a hardware company without venture backing. We get into the realities of working with overseas manufacturers, managing inventory and cash flow, and trying to grow while operating with real capital constraints.We also spend time on how the company has evolved since those early days, expanding beyond a single product into a broader set of offerings. A big part of the conversation focuses on tariffs and the impact they had on the business, what it actually means when your costs effectively triple overnight, why relocating one's manufacturing presence isn’t as simple as it sounds, and how those constraints forced a meaningful shift in strategy, including moving a large portion of the business toward international markets.I learned so much from Matt, and I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.
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[Lottie's Meats] Chelsey & Cassie Maschhoff
Mar 1900:47:55Tap to summarizeOn today’s episode, I sit down with Chelsey & Cassie Maschhoff, the co-founders of Lottie’s Meats, a company built around a simple idea: making sausage feel like a product worth rethinking.In our conversation, we talk about what they saw when they looked at the category early on, why so much of the sausage aisle felt visually dated and operationally stagnant, and how they set out to build something more modern around whole-muscle cuts, a cleaner ingredient list, and a clearer point of view on quality.We get into the early product development process, what it looked like to take recipes that worked in a kitchen and translate them into real production runs, and why the path to market ended up being more complicated than just making a better product. We also spend a lot of time on the actual mechanics of the business: the realities of working with multiple USDA facilities, why meat production creates constraints that a lot of other CPG brands never have to think about, what they learned very quickly about the economics of frozen DTC, and how retail, food service, farmers markets, and pop-ups each served a different purpose in helping them get the company off the ground.This is a conversation about category positioning, supply chain complexity, and what it really takes to build a premium product in a part of the store where consumers are used to thinking mostly about price. I learned so much from my conversation with Chelsey and Cassie, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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[Byte'm] Jack Davis & Jacob Tubis
Mar 1700:46:42Tap to summarizeOn today’s episode, I sit down with Jack Davis and Jacob Tubis, co-founders of Byte'm, a company built around a simple idea: bringing a true bakery-quality brownie to the grocery store in a bite-sized form factor.Jack and Jacob met as freshmen at American University and bonded over a shared interest in food and business. The idea for Byte'm started with Jack’s mom’s brownie recipe and an observation that, despite how beloved brownies are, the versions you find in most grocery stores rarely resemble the homemade ones people actually love.In this conversation, we talk about how they translated a home recipe into a product that could be manufactured at scale, what it was like to source early feedback from the market, and what it looked like to go from baking small batches in a kitchen to working with food scientists and co-packers.We also discuss the technical challenges of producing a brownie with a crispy edge and chewy center in a commercial production environment, how ingredient choices impact manufacturing costs and unit economics, the critical role packaging plays in communicating quality on a crowded shelf, and what it takes to start building retail distribution from scratch.I learned so much during my conversation with Jack and Jacob and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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