Read Receipt

In this episode of Read Receipt, Sean sits down with Melanie Kaplan, founder of oPPal, the platform that matches a mom who is pregnant or freshly postpartum (a Little oPPal) with a trained mom a couple of steps ahead of her (a Big oPPal). Their slogan says it plainly: "A mom who gets it because she's been there too."

Melanie spent her career in entertainment, lifestyle and impact PR and never wanted to start a company. That changed after her own postpartum experience, and an Instagram post that filled her inbox overnight. She walks through going down to 10 hours a week at her agency, a survey that drew 300 responses in 48 hours, and a free beta run on Squarespace, Typeform and iMessage that she calls "Love is Blind for moms."

She also gets into the $20 model, a friends and family round, a PR-led launch built around a practical baby shower, the seven-video training every Big oPPal takes, and why growth comes from showing up in person, not ads. Plus why oPPal is web-based instead of another app, and why, in a world of AI chatbots, she is betting on one human connection.

In this episode of Read Receipt, Sean sits down with Jeff Lee, co-founder and CEO of DIBS Beauty, the makeup brand that promises it will never be the brand that says "beautiful before, beautiful after," and builds for women in all 50 states, not just the coasts.

Jeff traces his path from Stanford, Yale Law and corporate law to running A-Rod Corp as COO, where he says he learned how to be a CEO from Alex Rodriguez and spent two seasons producing Sunday Night Baseball from the seat next to him. He gets into the gap DIBS filled, visiting an Ulta Beauty in every state, and working the retail floor because, as he puts it, he is not the customer.

He also digs into the CEO job itself: 15 to 25 decisions a day, hiring with case studies instead of rehearsed interview answers, bringing the team back to the office, and deleting his own job every year. Plus how AI is separating talent, and what happens to critical thinking for the next generation.

For 10% off DIBS Beauty, use code READRECEIPT.

In this episode of Read Receipt, Sean sits down with Angela Vranich, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Little Spoon, the brand that launched the first fresh baby food in 2017 and now feeds kids from infant formula through big kid snacks.

Angela traces the build from two years of hacking together custom packaging and making baby food by hand in a tamale factory outside LA, to a Whole Foods launch that stalled and a pivot to direct-to-consumer that sold over a million meals in year one. She gets into branding for the parent instead of the kid, Operation Gravity, where every employee spends 45 minutes with a customer once a year, and the Target launch that became the largest food and beverage launch in the retailer's history.

She also digs into why earning a parent's trust on first bites gives you the right to win every category after, launching infant formula to age down with customers, running an operation built on almost 20 co-packers, and how aging up with customers made direct-to-consumer work as ad costs kept rising.

In this episode of Read Receipt, Sean sits down with Will Nitze, founder and CEO of IQBAR, the brain and body nutrition brand behind plant protein bars, IQMIX hydration, and instant coffee. Will traces the build from buckets of fiber syrup in his kitchen to a Kickstarter he treated as proof of concept, riding the keto wave on Amazon, the CVS launch that went sideways, and running a lean 15-person hub-and-spoke company. He digs into his idea of trend surface area, why being on shelf is a free Facebook ad, and why you should only take advice from people who did what you want to do in the last 24 months.

In this episode of Read Receipt, Sean sits down with Rachel Hochhauser, co-founder of Piecework Puzzles, the art-forward puzzle brand whose puzzles look more like coffee table books than anything you'd find in a toy aisle.

Rachel started Piecework in 2019 with her co-founder Jena Wolfe as a creative side project while she was running her agency, Major Studio. It started with a rained-in cabin full of old jigsaw puzzles and four puzzles made with no shot list and no business plan. Then the pandemic puzzle boom hit, and Piecework had to grow up fast.

She gets into what came next: bringing on a president as co-owner to run the operations side, bootstrapping through tight cash cycles, and acquiring Areaware, the iconic design house Piecework had admired and stocked for years, while keeping it its own brand. She also shares why cocktail napkins, matches, and textiles now carry real weight next to puzzles, and her two pieces of advice for any brand going into wholesale: get to the right trade show, and get on Faire.

Tune in for an honest look at running two brands at once, writing a debut novel on the side, and why every small business is held together with tape and bubblegum.

In this episode of Read Receipt, Sean reconnects with Joe Hollier, co-founder of The Light Phone, the intentionally simple phone built to do less on purpose. It handles calls, texts, maps, and music, with no social media, email, or browser to check or recheck.

More than two years after their first conversation, Joe catches Sean up on what has changed. The Light Phone III is now the flagship, and the company just announced a flip phone that ships in 2027.

Joe walks through the brutal supply-chain gauntlet of the last two years: 150 percent tariffs that forced a full production halt, then the AI-driven memory shortage he calls Ramageddon, which pushed a component that normally costs under $40 past $450 and forced another pause and a price increase.

He also gets into the new open-source developer program he is most excited about, why a younger crowd is opting out through movements like the Summer of Ludd, and how a $299 flip phone and a $25-a-month plan try to lower the barrier for first-time and kids' phones.

In this episode of Read Receipt, Sean sits down with Michelle Arnau, co-founder and co-CEO of Mimikai, the first plant-based insect repellent proven to match DEET and Picaridin without the toxic chemistry.

Michelle traces an unlikely path to founder: Wells Fargo commercial real estate workouts, a Kellogg MBA, twelve years at Method scaling it from unprofitable startup to an SC Johnson acquisition, then co-founding the clean pet care brand Rowan before winding it down. When a college friend introduced her to Stephanie Watson, who had spent years fighting the EPA to register undecanone, a compound from wild tomato plants and the first new repellent active in twenty-five years, she got on a plane to Australia the next week.

She gets into the launch strategy behind a category-first product: why they led with Credo and REI before chasing mass shelf space, how they used velocity and repeat over door count, why she turned down a major retailer this year, and what it looks like to build with investors who back the long game over short-term revenue.

Tune in for an honest look at building a regulatory moat, knowing a category cold before entering it, and what it takes to finally change an aisle your dad used as a kid!

In this episode of Read Receipt, Sean sits down with John Scheer, co-founder and chief creative officer of Herman-Scheer, a strategic branding agency focused on healthcare, self-care, and wellbeing since 2010.

John traces the 15-year arc from knocking on doors with a duct-taped WordPress site to a 21-person agency that doubled in a year. He gets into the breakthroughs that turned a scrappy shop into a real business: splitting roles with co-founder Chapin Herman, niching down into health and wellness, and bringing in a strategist, Allison, to back the creative work with real data.

It's an honest look at getting your process dialed, doing the work before you know how, why you launch a brand to grow into rather than a single product, and giving yourself room to breathe while the business keeps growing.

Tune in for a candid conversation on building a branding agency the slow, deliberate way.

Chapters:

00:00 - Cold open

00:39 - Brand self-ID: what Herman-Scheer is

01:00 - Moving to Northeast Ohio, going fully remote

04:00 - Starting right out of college

07:00 - The first video and knocking on doors in LA

11:00 - The breakthrough: splitting roles with Chapin

14:00 - Niching into health, self-care, and wellbeing

17:00 - Adding data and insight, bringing in Allison

22:00 - The shape of the team today

28:00 - Account directors as the real differentiators

33:00 - Clients that come back, and the case-study lag

39:00 - The branding process, step by step

45:00 - How AI fits into the work

48:00 - The longer-term vision for the agency

51:00 - Room to breathe while the business grows

53:00 - Close

In this episode of Read Receipt, Sean checks back in with Katina Mountanos, founder and ceo of Kosterina, the greek olive oil and wellness brand betting the mediterranean diet belongs in every american pantry. two and a half years after her first appearance, she walks through how Kosterina grew from olive oil and vinegar into olive-oil shots, jarred olives, and a retail footprint across whole foods, target, walmart, sprouts and h-e-b. she gets into the walmart inbound that put their drinkable vinegars in 4,300 doors, why she runs the company on operational excellence, the brutal working-capital math of retail growth, and how she's building a founder brand on tiktok and substack. plus siete as her north star, the polyphenol case for early-harvest olive oil, and why a timeless brand also has to be timely.

In this episode of Read Receipt, Sean sits down with Cayla O'Connell Davis, co-founder and CEO of Subset, the organic cotton underwear brand rethinking what goes into your most-worn layer.

Cayla bootstrapped Subset in one of the toughest categories to fund, buying inventory five to six months ahead and launching with just four styles. One of them, the high-rise brief, got written up by Vogue and became a cult favorite that carried the brand out of the gate.

She gets into the scrappy, human side of growth: a first-of-its-kind program that takes back and recycles your old underwear, handing out free undies on the streets of New York, Galentine's Day roses with a buyback card, and why she markets an unseen product more like a perfume brand. Along the way she shares hard-won lessons on doing the unscalable things on purpose, and protecting time to stay creative several years in.

Tune in for an honest look at building a mission-driven brand through organic cotton, grassroots marketing, and a refusal to grow the easy way!

For 20% off Subset, use code READRECEIPT.

Chapters:

00:00 - Cold open
00:36 - What Subset is
01:00 - The family-run factory in India
03:00 - Bootstrapping an expensive category
04:24 - Launching with four styles and the Vogue high-rise brief
07:26 - The first 16,000-unit order
09:02 - Would she launch with PR today?
10:40 - The take-back recycling program
13:35 - Recycling as acquisition, then Trashie and SuperCircle
16:40 - What's driving new growth now
17:30 - Giving away underwear on the streets of New York
18:00 - Cotton vs synthetics: the health case
22:06 - The "ask me about my underwear" sign
28:32 - Galentine's roses and being a fun brand
31:30 - World-building for a product you can't see
33:33 - Getting flagged as adult content in paid ads
34:56 - New-media marketing: just be yourself
39:14 - Protecting time to stay creative
42:34 - Close