#115: How She Went from $2K to $1 Million Per Employee, Raised $14 Million with NO Network & What She'd Do Differently (Lisa Curtis, Kuli Kuli)
Manage episode 484005129 series 3260620
Meet Lisa Curtis, founder of Kuli Kuli, the superfood company that went from a Peace Corps idea and $2K in savings to raising $14M+ and landing on the shelves of 11,000+ stores across the U.S.
Lisa didn’t come from the food industry. She didn’t have a network or a fancy launch budget. But she built a business that cracked into Whole Foods, scaled to $1M in revenue per employee, and turned “nos” into million-dollar checks, all through scrappy execution and relentless follow-up.
In this episode, Lisa breaks down how she crowdfunded $53K to fund her first production run, built a data-backed retail pitch that got Whole Foods to say yes, and scaled a lean team that delivered big results before learning (the hard way) how to scale without burning out.
💡 Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:
How to Turn $2K into $53K with Crowdfunding: The simple but strategic campaign that launched a movement and validated product-market fit.
How to Get Into Retail Without a Broker: The exact data and story she used to get Whole Foods to take a bet on her early.
How to Raise $14M+ (Even If You’re Not Connected): The follow-up system that turned a 4-year ghost into a $2M investor.
How to Hit $1M Per Employee (and Why She Had to Rethink It): The trade-offs of scaling lean—and what she’s doing differently now.
How to Build a Repeatable Sales Process to Land 11,000 Stores: Why “charming harassment” works and how to follow up without being annoying.
Whether you’re launching a product or scaling to retail, Lisa’s journey proves you don’t need a head start—you just need strategy, scrappiness, and consistency.
📄 If you’re ready to activate AND get sh!t done, subscribe to our Growth Playbooks for weekly, actionable frameworks and strategies to help you scale smarter—no fluff, just results.
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132 episodes