Braun & Brains

Express Checkout is a media company covering the world of CPG, consumer brands, and retail. It was founded by Nate Rosen and Jenna Movsowitz and has become one of the go-to publications for understanding what’s happening in the snack and packaged food industry. I am honored to have known them both pre-Express Checkout and have been a big fan of the snack content Nate has put out since day one! One area of the startup world I’m definitely less versed in is CPG. Luckily, Nate was willing to share some of his expertes and post-Expo West takeaways. In this video from Braun & Brains, I sit down with Nate Rosen to talk about what’s actually happening in the space right now.We discuss celebrity food brands, the biggest trends coming out of Expo West (the largest trade show in the natural foods industry), and what’s currently taking over the CPG world. Nate also shares insights on how the funding environment has shifted for consumer brands and what snacks might dominate shelves this summer.Highlights from the episode:* Trying a prepackaged jammy egg at Expo West* Seeing celebrities like Chrissy Teigen, John Legend, and Jennifer Garner at the show* The growth of Express Checkout and how it built a large audience covering CPG trends* Why mushrooms are out and meat sticks are soooo in! Follow Express Checkout: * Instagram* Nate on TikTokRead about their time at Expo West 2026: PS. Did you like this format? If so, Substack is coming out with a feature you should keep an eye out for. Get full access to Braun & Brains at braunandbrains.substack.com/subscribe

Sam Altman’s startup Tools for Humanity is pushing its biometric verification system, World ID, into mainstream consumer brands. Gap has installed its iris-scanning Orb in a San Francisco store, Visa is developing a World ID-linked payment card, and Tinder is testing it in Japan for age and human verification. Originally launched as the crypto project Worldcoin, the company says its goal is to prove someone is a unique human online without revealing their identity. About 18 million people have signed up so far, as platforms explore new ways to combat bots and AI-generated accounts.Subscribe on Substack: https://braunandbrains.substack.com/Follow me on X: https://x.com/_rachelbraunFollow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_rachelbraun/Read more:🔗https://www.wsj.com/cmo-today/sam-altmans-human-verification-startup-leans-on-consumer-brands-787d8d4f🔗https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1lg7lui/reddit_in_talks_to_embrace_sam_altmans/🔗https://www.semafor.com/article/06/20/2025/reddit-considers-iris-scanning-orb-developed-by-a-sam-altman-startup🔗https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-tools-for-humanity-startup-culture-hardcore-2025-11 Get full access to Braun & Brains at braunandbrains.substack.com/subscribe

Andy Dunn is the founder of Pie, a platform helping users make better friends by facilitating recurring in-person interactions and discovering local events. Previously, Andy was the co-founder of the menswear brand Bonobos in 2007 and served as its CEO until Walmart acquired it in 2017. His book Burn Rate covered his entrepreneurial journey as a founder with bipolar disorder.https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pie-make-better-friends/id1509667820 00:00 START 02:02 Experiences with Isolation08:25 Reconnecting and Building Community18:09 Introducing Andy Dunn and Pie 21:10 Andy Dunn's Journey from Fashion to Friendship26:01 The Second Mountain: Life's New Challenges27:14 Loneliness vs. Social Isolation29:05 Skepticism Towards Social Startups30:01 The Creator Economy and Group Matching38:40 Scaling the Model Sustainably42:03 The Future Vision for Pie Braun & Brains is my personal outlet where I cover tech, business, and adjacent topics. Need production, insights, or a fresh perspective for your podcast or social media? Let’s talk. Get full access to Braun & Brains at braunandbrains.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, I’m joined by Odette Yang, co-founder of BeautyRightBack—a subscription-based platform that’s rethinking how beauty services work for both customers and salons. Before our conversation, I share my own experience with ClassPass, the “Digital Middleman Economy,” and what led me to start looking for a better way to book beauty. BRB offers unlimited blowouts, manis, pedis, waxing, and more—starting at $99/month. No credits. No guesswork. Just real value for customers and reliable revenue for salons. Odette and I talk about how BRB stands apart from ClassPass and Groupon, what makes the beauty industry so tough for small businesses, and how exclusivity and AI are helping create a more sustainable model. If you’ve ever booked a beauty treatment and wondered who’s really benefiting—this episode is for you.BRB: beautyrightback.com My newsletter: https://braunandbrains.substack.com/ Article mentioned: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/05/magazine/classpass-and-the-joy-and-guilt-of-the-digital-middleman-economy.html Braun & Brains is my personal outlet where I cover tech, business, and adjacent topics. Need production, insights, or a fresh perspective for your podcast or social media? Let’s talk. Get full access to Braun & Brains at braunandbrains.substack.com/subscribe

Braun & Brains is my personal outlet where I cover tech, business, and adjacent topics. Need production, insights, or a fresh perspective for your podcast or social media? Let’s talk.As more Americans become protein-obsessed and are called back to the office, quick, portable snacks have become staples. Last year, the star of the show was beef jerky sticks, like Chomps. Now, it feels like we are are in the year of cottage cheese. US cottage cheese sales have grown over 50% in the past five years, rising 16% in 2023 and another 17% in 2024, according to Circana, as highlighted by The Wall Street Journal. “For most of the past half-century, cottage cheese has been known as a food that you eat when you’re on a diet and trying not to eat much food. But these days, Americans who are obsessed with health, wellness, and longevity are so hungry for rich sources of protein that cottage cheese has become one of the sexiest products in the grocery store.” — Ben Cohen, The Wall Street JournalLately, when I scroll through social media, I often come across someone sharing a recipe to make cottage cheese taste like anything but cottage cheese. (Cottage cheese chocolate mousse? Please). That alone was a sign it might not be for me, but my history with the food runs deeper.Growing up, my parents were always concerned with protein. This trend is not new to the Braun household. Spoonfuls of peanut butter cover the canvas of my childhood like a Jackson Pollock painting. I have the opposite of an almond mom (she’s more like a Kerrygold mom) and my father thinks a handful of wasabi almonds is a meal. The battles I had as a kid with my parents, refusing to eat cottage cheese on my way to soccer practice or school, will go down in history. Cottage cheese and I have personal beef (and not in the on-the-go meat stick kind of way). However, a few weeks ago, I found myself, eating (and dare I say enjoying) the very mushy substance I saw as the enemy for so long. I was attending an event by Jack Taylor PR on the hunt for free food (as one does) and was taken by surprise after I picked up some ice cream. I was bamboozled. I’m not going to say it was exactly like Ben & Jerry’s; it had a little something to it. But it didn’t lack flavor and stayed rich, unlike other health-focused ice creams I’ve fallen victim to in the aisles of Whole Foods late at night. When I swung back around the floor for a second cup, I realized I was eating a cup of cottage cheese, and my heart dropped to the floor. And this brings me to the interview portion of this newsletter: introducing the creator of the cottage cheese that broke me—Joe Rotondo, CEO and founder of Smearcase.Joe Rotondo founded Smearcase, the first and only FroCo (frozen cottage cheese), offering the highest-protein ice cream on the market—40 grams per pint—boosted with collagen, low-fat, and free from artificial gums or sweeteners.Rachel: Why the name Smearcase?Joe: Smearcase is a German term for cottage cheese. We get that question a lot! It’s an ode to our not-so-secret ingredient, cottage cheese. The name is a bit controversial, but it sparks curiosity and grabs attention,which is the ultimate goal.Rachel: So, are you German?Joe: No, my name is Joseph Rocco Rotondo, and I’m a proud Italian American. But my grandma was German, so in a way, the name is also a tribute to her.Rachel: What inspired you to create a cottage cheese ice cream brand?Joe: It’s crazy, dairy is a great protein source, but ice cream is usually low in protein and high in fat. I’m not a big dessert guy, but I was training for my first marathon about a year and a half ago. It was a brutally hot summer day in New York, and after my run, I was craving ice cream but wanted something with more nutritional value.I was in a grocery store, sweating, shirtless, staring at the ice cream aisle, thinking, Why is there no high-protein ice cream? Later, I was eating my usual dessert, cottage cheese with honey and blueberries, when I thought, I wish this was ice cream instead of curdy, clumpy cottage cheese. That’s when it hit me: There’s no such thing as frozen cottage cheese or high-protein ice cream. The entrepreneur in me had to explore it.Rachel: Is this your first venture into food entrepreneurship?Joe: This isn’t my first rodeo in entrepreneurship,I’ve had a New York City-based clothing brand and a few e-commerce ventures. But this is my first time in CPG.That said, I grew up around food. I’m Italian, so pasta Sundays were like a religious holiday. My dad owned restaurants and delis, and I worked with him a lot. After college, I was in his bagel shop when his bagel guy quit. I happened to be eating an egg sandwich at the time and said, Dad, do you need a new bagel guy? He said, Yeah, you start today. I had a one-week crash course from two Spanish-speaking guys (I failed Spanish in high school, so that was interesting), and eventually, I ended up winning Best Bagel in New Jersey.Rachel: How did you achieve the creamy texture in Smearcase?Joe: We’re past the days of sacrificing taste for health,taste is everything. We wanted Smearcase to be as close to traditional ice cream as possible, so we use raw cane sugar for flavor and texture.Our key innovation was replacing traditional gums and emulsifiers with collagen, which acts as the glue for our product. That’s what gives it a creamy mouthfeel instead of the icy texture you find in other health-focused ice creams. We wanted it to be clean, simple, and delicious.Rachel: Protein is having a moment. Are you capitalizing on a trend, or do you think this is here to stay?Joe: Ice cream is way sexier than meat sticks! And way sexier than cottage cheese. Brands like Good Culture are making cottage cheese cool again, and we’re riding that wave.That said, I try to take myself out of trends. I’m obsessed with making something timeless,something that outlives the moment. That was my ethos when I had my clothing brand, and it’s my approach to food.Sure, protein is having a moment, but a high-protein diet is a proven path to better health. Cottage cheese has had countless comebacks, and it will stay relevant as long as there’s innovation. Good Culture was the first mover, and we’re the first brand to introduce cottage cheese as an ingredient in a CPG product. We’re paving the way for others to follow.Rachel: How hard was it to develop and launch this product?Joe: If you ask other people, they’ll probably say it was near impossible. At the Fancy Food Show in June 2024, top industry names told us they didn’t think it was possible.But I was new to ice cream,I didn’t know what I wasn’t supposed to do. My sister, my co-founder Drew, and I made this in my New York apartment. I grew up in the kitchen, so for me, that’s my lab, my happy place.We surrounded ourselves with the right people, and that helped accelerate our path to the shelf. We created a whole new category in under six months. That’s insane.Rachel: Who is your target customer?Joe: It’s a mix. Some people want more protein in their diet, while others want a better-for-you sweet treat.At store demos, if I see someone grabbing Yasso or Halo Top, I say, Hey, come try this,you’re gonna put that back. And they usually do.We’ve had a lot of success in the New York City health and wellness scene,brand activations, our own events, getting in front of people who value clean, better-for-you products. The market is waking up to better CPG options, and we’re right in that wave.Rachel: Where can people buy Smearcase?Joe: If you’re in New York City, you can order us on GoPuff. In New Jersey, we’re on Instacart.We’re also available at ShopRite, Morton Williams, Fairway, and Happier Grocery,one of my favorites. If you’re in Westchester, you can find us at DeCicco’s. And we’re launching in some major retailers in March and April 2025, so stay tuned!Rachel: Are you planning to expand beyond ice cream?Joe: That’s exactly why we named it Smearcase. We didn’t call it Joe’s Ice Cream or Cottage Creamery. We envision introducing cottage cheese in new form factors, but right now, we’re focused on making the best possible ice cream.Once we’ve built a strong foundation, we’d love to explore new categories. Get full access to Braun & Brains at braunandbrains.substack.com/subscribe

🧠 Welcome to a 'Brains issue of Braun & Brains, featuring interviews with smart people from my network that are doing cool things. If you would like to listen to these as podcast episodes, check out the show here .🧠I remember the first time I heard about diabetes. I was in elementary school, frantically searching for causes and symptoms, desperately trying to figure out if it was a death sentence. My heart was racing. I didn’t have a lot of time alone on the computer, and I knew that Googling phrases like “life expectancy with diabetes” was something my parents would have questions about if they caught me. But I couldn’t help it; Nick Jonas had just been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and I was supposed to go to his concert soon. This wasn’t just any concert. It was my first concert ever, and Nick was my Jonas Brother, the one whose teen magazine spreads plastered my walls and whose face was on my second-favorite T-shirt (only topped by the one my mom let me get from Hot Topic that said, “I was a vegetarian before it was cool”). My research left me more confused, but Nick ended up performing, and my shirt looked great at the concert. He even capitalized on the diagnosis and did some influencer marketing around diabetes. While Nick was able to keep being a boy band heartthrob, his diabetes didn’t disappear, and the disease, along with those impacted by it, has stayed increasingly on my radar.@nickjonasWOW… 😎 the all-new @dexcom G7 is available tomorrow in the US for people with all types of diabetes. #Sponsored #DexcomMagicMoment #Diabetes #Dexcom #DexcomG7Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browserFlash forward to a year ago, and another man I see on the internet far too much was talking about his blood sugar: Bryan Johnson. In a clip, he explained how his blood glucose levels were ideal, which he figured out after wearing an uncomfortable blood glucose monitor for ten days. As someone who has avoided going to the ER purely because there’s a chance they might hook me up to an IV, a CGM sounded like my worst nightmare.It’s not the needle that’s the problem. At one point in college, I had eight ear piercings, plus my nose and belly button pierced. I looked like I was trying to attract a murder of crows, and I wasn’t afraid of needles. It’s having the needle stay in my body that I don’t like. As the year went on, I saw more and more people from my side of the tech bro podcast world talk about blood sugar and managing it; from Diary of a CEO to Tim Ferriss, and even some X discourse. Even beyond the corners of my chronically online side of the internet, consumers are seeing brands like Oura introduce a feature that tracks blood sugar levels through a partnership with Dexcom, alongside whispers of Apple developing a non-invasive blood glucose monitoring system for the Apple Watch. In a few years' time, I expect this trend of tracking your blood sugar to snowball into something as common as monitoring the hours you sleep.This brings me to my conversation with Noosheen Hashemi, founder and CEO of January AI, a health tech company focused on managing chronic diseases. In 2024, January launched an app that uses AI to predict how food will affect your blood sugar, with no sensors, needles, or even eating required. It’s a huge step in tackling issues like diabetes, prediabetes, and obesity. Before founding January, Noosheen was a VP at Oracle, where she helped grow the company’s revenue from $26 million to $3 billion a year.I had dinner with Noosheen and used the app with her; her enthusiasm for the product is unmatched. I had the pleasure of speaking with her again for Braun & Brains, diving deeper into the company’s mission and why she thinks this is a problem worth solving. Noosheen Hashemi is the founder and CEO of January AI, a company that leverages artificial intelligence to advance precision health and preventative care, with a focus on metabolic health.Rachel: Some people think metabolic health is just a passing trend. Do you believe this focus is here to stay?Noosheen: No, I think this is definitely going to stick around. We began putting CGMs on healthy people in 2017, and a lot of companies followed. Of course, we are the only AI company of the bunch. We always intended to leverage the power of hardware to provide AI predictions so people don’t have to wear hardware all the time.Our vision was to help people use hardware to see where they are and get educated, but also to have tools for those who can’t afford hardware or find it too invasive. In our first and second product versions, we offered a CGM. In our third version, available in the app store now, it works without sensors, expanding access so more people can learn about metabolic health. If they want to use a sensor, they can, but they don’t have to. I actually think the moment for blood sugar awareness in America is still a few years away, probably a 10-year cycle from when we started putting CGMs on healthy people.Rachel: Many online discussions suggest that non-diabetics don’t need continuous glucose monitors. Why should they still consider tracking their blood sugar?Noosheen: I agree that if they are not insulin-intense, they don’t need to wear a sensor. But a lot of people don’t know they have prediabetes or diabetes. Twenty-two percent of people believed to have diabetes in this country are undiagnosed, and 90 percent of people with prediabetes are undiagnosed. People don’t really know, so it’s kind of like Russian roulette.In the U.S., we don’t screen for metabolic disease unless someone is visibly obese and over 40. If people want to know and can afford it, they can wear a sensor for 10-14 days and see how they’re really doing. If they don’t want something invasive or expensive, they can download January AI and start learning by just taking pictures of their food. The AI does the rest.Rachel: When you showed me your technology over dinner, I was amazed. How did you develop this system without requiring physical glucose monitors?Noosheen: It seems magical, but it’s seven and a half years of research. It’s millions of data points from thousands of people who wore sensors. We’ve been published twice, most recently in November 2023 and January 2025 in NPJ Digital Medicine, for our AI’s ability to scale weight loss and behavior change.We developed our own generative AI that predicts glucose levels. It has taken tens of millions of dollars and a lot of AI talent to break down food into a measurable assay. We built a nutritional inference model, created glycemic index and glycemic load calculations, and developed a food database with 54 million foods. The app allows users to take pictures of meals, and the AI identifies the food, breaks it down into ingredients, and predicts how it will affect blood sugar. Users can then modify portions and see how changes might improve their response.Rachel: What has been the most difficult part of building January AI?Noosheen: Early on, the challenge was hiring AI talent. In 2017, people wanted to work at OpenAI or on tools for everyone rather than health applications. Another challenge was having no experience building a tool like this. We had to run clinical trials just to observe people and see what would happen, which was expensive and time-consuming.Our early products were clunky because AI engineers develop models in Jupyter notebooks, which can’t just be dropped into an app. We had to build all the data engineering infrastructure to make it work smoothly. Over time, we got our infrastructure right so R&D could seamlessly transition into an app experience.Now, a challenge is that while our predictions could work for Type 1 diabetics, we don’t want to go through the regulatory process. It would require an expensive, large trial. Also, many people still don’t fully trust AI or expect to pay for it. And blood sugar awareness in the U.S. is still developing. People wake up wanting to lose weight, but they don’t yet think about monitoring their blood sugar as a daily priority.Rachel: What major health trends do you anticipate in the next five years, and how will January AI fit into them?Noosheen: Metabolic health is an unstoppable trend. You saw Oura buy Vari, and Oura will have metabolic health features soon. Apple will follow. Others will too. Metabolic health will become consumerized, and I think everyone will be tracking their blood sugar in the future.The omics revolution is another big trend. Managing health requires more than just knowing cholesterol levels. People will care about body composition, get DEXA scans, and wear CGM sensors from companies like Lingo or Stelo. There will be advancements in proteomics too. Wearables, omics, and metabolic health will dominate.I also think we will see major changes in healthcare under this administration. I expect serious efforts to make electronic health records interoperable and to improve data accessibility for patients and doctors. AI will become central to integrating all this data, leading to better health insights.Rachel: You believe the current administration will improve healthcare, but my brother, who is applying to med schools right now, is concerned the opposite will happen. What changes do you expect?Noosheen: Healthcare has a lot of challenges. Regulations meant to protect privacy sometimes maintain monopolies and keep pricing opaque. Insurance companies and healthcare providers have secret deals that make costs unpredictable for patients. People already pay huge premiums, then get surprise bills.I hope we will see more transparency, removal of unnecessary regulations, and better data integration so AI can help people understand their health. In finance, insider trading and self-dealing are tightly controlled. Healthcare should have the same level of transparency so consumers can make informed choices. Get full access to Braun & Brains at braunandbrains.substack.com/subscribe