She Said Yes Before She Was Ready, and It Changed Everything - Kelly Bottenfield, K&C Ventures

What we talked about.

Kelly Bottenfield joins Sunny Ray to talk about saying yes before feeling ready and what that leap taught her. After 27 years in consumer packaged goods, including more than a decade at Whole Foods Market, Kelly left a stable corporate job to help her friend and future co-founder Bea Dixon build a feminine care brand, The Honey Pot Company, out of a home kitchen in Atlanta. She built the commercial and sales organization that carried the brand into roughly 33000 retail doors, oversaw its growth from about 300000 in sales in 2017 to nearly 30 million by 2020, and helped guide it through a viral Target ad and a pandemic driven demand spike. After Compass Diversified acquired a majority stake, Kelly stayed on as an investor before stepping back to co-found K&C Ventures with her husband. The firm advises early stage founders and is raising its first SPV to back a regenerative skincare brand called My Neighbors. Kelly shares what retail taught her about buyer relationships, the real cost of national distribution, and what an operator brings to a cap table that a pure financial investor cannot.

A former Whole Foods buyer said yes to a home made feminine care brand, helped it reach 33000 doors, and now backs founders.

The questions, and the answers.

What is K&C Ventures and what problem is it solving?

My husband and I started K&C Ventures after I sold my company. After 27 years in consumer packaged goods and multiple startups, I wanted to give back by advising and angel investing in early stage founders. It has grown into a community and thought exchange, and we are now raising our first SPV so founders can spend less time fundraising and more time running their businesses.

You said yes to The Honey Pot before you felt ready. What did that opportunity look like in the moment?

My co-founder Bea Dixon was making the product at home in Atlanta and selling it locally when Target called wanting to change the feminine care aisle. Bea asked me to leave my stable job with insurance and join her. I was terrified giving up stability with no guarantee it would work, but I believed in what we were building, so I said yes and we learned as we went.

What did your years in retail teach you that a brand founder almost never learns in time?

You have to see it from the buyer's side. Shelf space is valuable and getting it does not mean you keep it. You need to understand the buyer's KPIs and tie them to your own so you build a true partnership, because how you see your brand and how the retailer sees it are two different things you have to bring together.

What was the first thing you had to unlearn moving from a big company to an early stage one?

Creating minutia to get things done. Big companies have layers and it takes forever to make a decision. In a small company it is just you and a few others, there is nobody to back you up, and you are the adult in the room. You have to trust yourself, take the leap, make mistakes, and learn from them. Ego has to go too.

What is the through line between selling into retail and picking companies to back now?

Every brand and every founder is unique, and you have to find the right audience for each one. When I talk to founders I like to hear how they are thinking about going to market first, because that tells me whether they truly understand their customer or are just chasing every shelf, which is not very strategic.

When did you know The Honey Pot was not just a good product but a category shift?

At early trade shows almost nobody knew who we were. A couple years later people were coming to our booth saying they loved the brand. We grew from about 300000 in sales in 2017 to almost 30 million by 2020. A Target commercial featuring me and Bea's families ran during the Super Bowl, then COVID hit and demand was so high we had to shut our website for eight months just to keep retailers stocked.

What is the most expensive mistake a consumer brand makes on its way into national retail?

Asking for too many doors too soon. People think they want every retailer, but you should test and learn in a smaller set first. Retail has real costs like slotting fees and trade spend that can eat three or four dollars out of a five dollar item. If you do not understand those economics going in, your business can fail within a year.

What does an operator bring to a cap table that a purely financial investor cannot?

You bring insight into the pitfalls and the small costs that quietly eat at a business, things a pure investor only sees on the bigger P&L. People management is huge too. Most founders are not natural managers, and hiring the wrong friend into a role costs a lot of time, money, and mental space. I help clear that path early so founders can focus on running the business.