My first boss: Melissa Snover, CEO of Nourished
My First Boss
Melissa Snover is the founder and CEO of the world’s first 3D printed, personalised vitamin brand Nourished, which allows consumers to take a quiz then receive bespoke seven-layered vitamin gummies.
Nourished grew 350% between 2020 and 2021 to a turnover of £3.44m. Starting with four staff in 2020, by the end of 2023 there will be over 200 employees at three Birmingham facilities, while the business is forecasting £10m in sales. They recently partnered with Suntory Holdings in a £2.5m investment deal for their expansion to Asia, with further partnerships planned for 2023.
I’ve heard some horror stories about other people’s first bosses. Mine was Mary Bloom. She was about 4ft 6in tall and probably weighed less than 100 pounds, yet, she was one of the strongest, feistiest, most passionate people that I ever had the pleasure to work with.
She was an entrepreneur and small business owner and I was very lucky to have met her. She was my first boss at a bakery called Maggie McCullough's where she sought to bring authentic sourdough and raisin bread to a little town at the time in Colorado called Fort Collins. She even went all the way to France to get a vintage sourdough starter. The insurance on that sourdough starter alone was eye watering.
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When I came to work with her, I was only 13. It was an incredible learning experience that has stayed with me my entire life. There was so much craftsmanship in the making of the products. Her customer service was phenomenal and she had a constant need to seek out new innovations. So much what I learnt from her still influences me today.
Mary showed me that I needed to go out to different cultures, learn from people in similar businesses and bring home something unique. She travelled all over the world, looking for recipes, cooking styles, sauces and specialities.
By the third year, we had an impressive marketplace attached to the bakery, which had things like sriracha sauce and Thai sweet chilli – well before they became commonplace in the whole foods market. Instead of throwing it on the shelf, she also conceived a sandwich with it. She picked the best parts of what she found and made it fit for purpose for her target audience.
Today I create my own technology from scratch whenever I can’t find anything out there which will serve my needs. Many of the ingredients we use at Nourished were not available in the UK. But by having unique products and having science behind it means that we have been offering added value to our customers.
I haven’t had many bosses as I started my own company when I was 23. In 2019 I raised the highest seed round funding of any female founder in UK history. I hope somebody beats it as it was only £2.5m; what is unique is that there are very few sole female founder businesses that raise VC funding.
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I had a 3D printing food business called Magic Candid Factory before Nourished which was allowing consumers to create their own confectionary products. I was coming home from an event in Germany, I was at airport security and opened my bag but the zipper caught my plastic bag full of vitamins.
I was on my hands and knees in my business suit picking them up. And I thought there must be better functionality for all my vitamins. On the flight I asked for a napkin, I drew a picture with what I wanted to create with the Nourished concept: creating customised vitamins, which were easier to travel with, chewable and high dose.
What we have now created is almost identical to what I drew on that napkin. When I develop a product I start with the consumer's needs, and then I find whatever technology I need to create that as the end product.
At Nourished, we have an algorithmic quiz that consumers take to find out what vitamins they should have. The algorithm is extremely good at what it does. We test daily as more information becomes known. The quiz questions have been fine tuned to an inch of their lives.
The combinations will tell us what customers do on a daily basis, what their existing health conditions are, as well as their goals for their health. We wouldn’t have 85% retention, with thousands of five star reviews, if we weren't meeting their needs.
One of the best things about our technological solutions is that we are more agile in manufacturing, online offerings and data analysis than anyone I’ve seen. We build our own manufacturing equipment, do all of our own packaging, formulate new product development and create our own online outfitting and design.
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We are still small and agile enough as a business to respond to new data and customer trends in real time – and with very little cost in comparison to a big factory. We can be faster and it’s not risky to add to our concept and serve the growing demands of our customer base. That gives us a unique opportunity to help people on their health and wellness journeys in a way that traditional mass produced products can’t do. There is a place for both, but we can be fit for purpose and adapt for any individual.
It was Mary who taught me the importance of loving your career, which if you are an entrepreneur and you choose to go down that path will be the vast majority of your waking life. So if you don't love it that would be the greatest waste.
It was only years later that I found out the bakery never made a lot of profit, and that she instead took this money out of her own earnings to share with the people who baked bread with her and made it possible. I still do this for my team today.
Mary sadly passed away recently, but her lessons and joy will live on. She touched my life, and I wouldn’t be the woman I am today without her, but I cannot be alone in that. Everyone she came in contact with was richer for it. And for that she will be remembered.
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