On 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.