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Sara Brooks is the Co-Founder of Goldilocks, a brand and commercial strategy consultancy…
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Sara Brooks posted thisWe started our Plainspeak Facebook Group on July 1. Today, on its three month anniversary, we killed it. Plainspeak is, and always will be, a community-first brand. What does that mean to us, exactly? Brands throw around “community” like they used to say “authentic.” To us, it means this: we will prioritize a deep connection with the women engaging with our brand ahead of asking her to spend money with us. Every time. As a team, we’ve spent a LOT of time debating where the Plainspeak community should live. We tried WhatsApp, where too few of our target consumers were comfortable participating. (Our scrappy WhatsApp focus group will live in infamy.) We explored Circle, but it felt like too much work to ask women to join another platform. The question became less “Which platform do we like?” and more “Where will women actually show up, talk to each other, and come back?” So we settled on Facebook. And none of us ever wanted to be there. Our friends and family would cheerily post in support of our efforts (THANK YOU WE LOVE YOU YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE), but that was about it. Meanwhile, we briefly entertained the fantasy that we could avoid Instagram because, frankly, none of us particularly loves being there. That dream did not survive contact with reality. So today, we launched a Plainspeak Instagram Broadcast Channel, which, unlike our Facebook Group, people actually seem to want to join. 😂 Come hang out with us here → https://lnkd.in/gjHer8Yz So we're moving on. There are too many other things that are working and deserve our attention. (Hot tip: if you haven’t already, join our email list.) We said we’d prioritize connection. That means following the women, even when it means abandoning our plan. And honestly, this is what I love about building a brand: you make a plan, learn from the people you’re building it for, and get to make it better. That’s also the entire point of our Founders’ Batch. We deliberately started small because we wanted these first few months to be about learning: what women love, what they don’t, what they want more of, where they want to hear from us and, apparently, where they definitely do not want to hang out with us. We’re getting ready for the next chapter of Plainspeak, and the goal was never to prove that our original plan was right. It was to learn enough to build the right one. cc: Goldilocks Heather MacNeil Rachel (Pollard) Moore
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Sara Brooks shared thisWe loved sitting down with The Beauty Brief to chat about how we are rethinking "wellness" at Plainspeak ❤️ .Sara Brooks shared thisWellness has become a lot of homework for something that’s supposed to help us feel better. After years building consumer brands, Sara Brooks, Heather MacNeil and Rachel (Pollard) Moore started Plainspeak with a question: what would wellness look like if it respected women’s time, intelligence and real lives? Their first product, Strength Water, brings five nutrients into one daily scoop. But what caught our attention was the thinking behind it: no invented insecurities, no pressure to do everything, and a launch built around getting samples into women’s hands and hearing what they actually think. Meet Plainspeak in our latest Behind the Brand. And stay tuned for our conversation with the founders about the wellness myths they’re ready to retire 💋XO, Bethany Paris Ramsay & Shiri Feldman #plainspeak #wellness #thebeautybrief #brandstrategy #brandmarketing #femalefounders #marketingstrategy
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Sara Brooks shared thisGet your flannel and cookies!!Sara Brooks shared thisFollow our amazing client Bakr for a masterclass in seasonal drops. Bakr has turned Target into a destination for bakery-quality, REAL BUTTER frozen baked goods - and a little birdie told us they’re the most productive brand in the entire frozen dessert set 👀. Even more impressive: Bakr has grown more than 10x since we started working together just one year ago. The playbook? Broadly appealing flavors, reimagined through unique, season-specific packaging that drives incremental sales and creates a halo back to the core line. Co-founder Alexa Ryan just gets it. We love the flannel for fall. Stay tuned for holiday + Valentine’s Day… ❤️🎄💘 !! cc Kyle Ryan 🍪
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Sara Brooks shared thisTurns out, talking to your customers is a pretty good marketing strategy!!! Thousands of free samples, a lot of DMs and a community that is actively helping us figure out what Plainspeak should become. Loved talking to Julia Waldow @ Modern Retail about why we’re building this one a little differently. 💗Sara Brooks shared thisHappy Tuesday! Today's Brands Briefing is all about a small but mighty tool: DMs. 📩 💌 As marketing costs skyrocket, Instagram inboxes are proving to be a gold mine for product development and customer insights. Brands are now tweaking their merchandise in response to DMs — including adding new colors, updating size runs, and revisiting subscription models. As Lindsay Jackson of Made In told me, "DMs are the best place to keep yourself honest, because the consumers are giving you unfiltered feedback 24/7, 365." Click the link below to learn how Made In, Plainspeak (Sara Brooks), Springrose (Nicole Cuervo), sproos! (Benjamin Fix), FashionPass, Pink Chicken New York (Stacey Fraser), and Evelyn & Bobbie (Bree R. McKeen) are turning to DMs! https://lnkd.in/gak9FStMBrands Briefing: Instagram DMs are proving to be a gold mine for product developmentBrands Briefing: Instagram DMs are proving to be a gold mine for product development
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Sara Brooks shared thisWhen someone gets it, they REALLY get it. 🥹 We didn’t start Plainspeak to be vaguely acceptable to everyone. We started it to make something that felt very specifically for us - and hopefully, our people. Thank you Arica Rosenthal for seeing exactly what we’re trying to build. 💗Sara Brooks shared thisI love when a brand is willing to risk turning some people off. Especially when they're new. I recently tried PlainSpeak's first product: Strength Water. Loved it. That's not what I want to talk about. What I'm obsessed with are the little things they've done around the brand. The package copy details. The emails. The willingness to have an actual personality. Example: a recent email with the subject line: “Fuck, Marry, Kill, Volume 1” That is absolutely going to delight some people and disgust others. Good. Because the functional drink space is crowded. You can have a differentiated product, but if you market it exactly like everyone else, I'm probably not going to remember you. Plainspeak feels like it's making a different choice: be very much for someone instead of vaguely acceptable to everyone. It reminds me of Seth Godin's idea of the smallest viable audience. You don't need everyone to care. You need to find the smallest group of people who care enough to get you to the next step and make something they want to tell other people about. I think this is especially important for emerging brands. There's such a temptation to keep broadening: > Don't make the copy too weird. > Don't make the creative too specific. > Don't alienate this audience. > Don't say something that could make someone unsubscribe. And eventually you've sanded off everything that would have made someone love the brand in the first place. Some people probably opened that Plainspeak email and thought, absolutely not. Someone else thought, okay, these are my people. For me, the second reaction is much more valuable than everyone thinking, “that's nice.” I actually joked with Sara Brooks (one of the co-founders) that in Plainspeak's case, it's literally in the name. They kind of have to say it straight.
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Sara Brooks shared thisThis is one of those projects that makes you appreciate the long game of brand building. More than two years ago, we partnered with the Back to Nature Foods team to reposition a 60-year-old brand and build the marketing strategy for its next chapter. Well, the results are in. And what results!! Brand awareness +22%. Brand lift +85%. Cookie dollar sales +56% YTD. Cracker dollar sales +35% YTD. More than 3,000 new doors. So proud to have played a part in this one, and huge congrats to the Back to Nature team for everything they’ve built since. Heather MacNeil Rachel (Pollard) MooreSara Brooks shared thisThis is the kind of headline we love to see 👏. Two years after Back to Nature Foods unveiled its new brand positioning and identity, the results are pretty incredible: - Brand awareness +22% - Brand lift +85% - Social engagement +180% YTD - Cookie sales +56% YTD - Cracker sales +35% YTD ...and 3,000+ new doors since the refresh rolled out. Goldilocks had the privilege of partnering with the Back to Nature team on the repositioning and marketing strategy behind this next chapter — helping a 60-year-old brand move beyond a functional “plant-based” proposition and find a more relevant, differentiated place in culture. Huge congratulations to Jessica McDonald and the entire Back to Nature team. So fun to watch what you’ve built...and even more fun to see the numbers behind it 🤓. Andrea Furber Jennifer Jorgensen Maggie Hylton https://lnkd.in/guFpDqk4Back to Nature’s Brand Awareness Climbs 22% as Rebrand Fuels 3,000 Door ExpansionBack to Nature’s Brand Awareness Climbs 22% as Rebrand Fuels 3,000 Door Expansion
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Sara Brooks shared thisOne of my favorite parts of building Plainspeak is our weekly newsletter. Sometimes they’re silly (like our recent theory that two separate Sleep Number mattresses might be the secret to a happy marriage). And sometimes they’re more poignant and raw - like today’s edition from my brilliant partner Rachel (Pollard) Moore Moore, about approaching midlife after losing her mom far too young, and how that loss has completely reframed what getting older means to her. It’s beautiful, funny, sad and ultimately incredibly life-affirming. That’s really what we hope these emails can be: a place to talk about this stage of life in all its weirdness and complexity. To make you laugh, make you think (and occasionally make you cry, sorry!!) and generally reject the internet’s suggestion that being in midlife is not a medical emergency or a problem to optimize your way out of. https://lnkd.in/g3x2pMbRMy Mom Died Young. It Changed How I Think About Getting OlderMy Mom Died Young. It Changed How I Think About Getting Older
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Sara Brooks shared thisPlot twist: we’ve spent our careers writing CPG launch playbooks for a living. Then we started a brand of our own...and threw out the playbook entirely. Thank you Victoria Watters for telling the Plainspeak story. https://lnkd.in/g7vJ6Nq6
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Sara Brooks shared thisI am so excited to be returning as a Breakout Speaker at the Shopify Talent Commerce Summit in Los Angeles on September 16th. Looking forward to joining a stellar group of industry leaders (and friends) to talk all things culture, creators, commerce, celebrity—and, ultimately, how to build brands that people actually care about. Thanks, 🎬 Dhruv Patel, for having me back. I can’t wait to see what you pull off this year…
Sara Brooks replied to a comment
9h
Shannon F. thank you so much 🥹just over here trying to do it a little differently ❤️❤️
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Sara Brooks liked thisSara Brooks liked thisPlainspeak’s founders spent months figuring out how to mail a sample for the cost of a few stamps. They wanted women to try Strength Water, tell them what they thought and, if they loved it, pass it along to a friend. That choice tells you a lot about the brand Sara Brooks, Heather MacNeil and Rachel (Pollard) Moore are building. After years helping other consumer brands find their voice, they created Plainspeak with a rule for their own marketing: every sentence should leave women feeling informed rather than inadequate. For our full feature, we spoke with the founders about the wellness advice they’re ready to retire, why they refuse to make aging a problem to solve and how their community is shaping what Plainspeak makes next. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/ghNU2zsB 💋XO, Bethany Paris Ramsay & Shiri Feldman #plainspeak #wellness #thebeautybrief #brandstrategy #beautyindustry #femalefounders #beautybusiness #beverages #beautynews
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Sara Brooks liked thisSara Brooks liked thisHere comes the Dump Truck!! The wild ride continues. Check out these trucks, rolling around the LA area for the next few months. Shout out Tom Shea and his entire team, this has been so much fun bringing to life. If you happen to see one, honk if you love buns!
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Sara Brooks liked thisSara Brooks liked thisWe're hiring at Mysha. The person who held this role before is being promoted from it — now we need someone equally amazing to step in. Experience & Strategic Partnership Manager Full-time, remote (NYC based) You'll concept and run up to 8 events a month across our hubs (NYC, LA, Miami, Austin) and build the brand, venue, and vendor partnerships that make them feel like Mysha. Ideal for someone from PR, events, or partnerships 5+ years experience, sharp taste, strong connector skills and vision Expect to learn how to host and organzie the most engaging events in the country Small team = real ownership. JD Link in comments Apply: https://lnkd.in/eSYGb6Vw Questions: hello@myshapods.com
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Sara Brooks liked thisSara Brooks liked thisBeautiful morning to fly out and see some beautiful people at Founderland.us 2026. So much to be grateful for, and this event is always my favorite way to benchmark the E+PATROL journey.
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Sara Brooks liked thisSara Brooks liked thisToday marks an exciting next chapter for Stride Consumer Partners. We are thrilled to announce the final closing of Stride Consumer Fund II with $550MM. The Fund’s investors also include more than two dozen founders and executives with whom we have previously partnered. Steven Berg, Partner at Stride, and Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali, Co-Founders of Chomps, sat down with John Hyatt from Forbes to discuss how we have collaborated together over the last several years. We founded Stride with a simple belief: exceptional consumer brands are built by exceptional people. Our role is to be the kind of partner who can help talented founders and management teams turn that vision into something enduring. Since launching Stride, we have had the privilege of partnering with an incredible group of founders and teams building beloved consumer brands. We are enormously grateful for their trust, and for everything they continue to teach and inspire in us. Fund II gives us the opportunity to keep doing what we love — finding great consumer brands and services with passionate leaders, rolling up our sleeves alongside them, and supporting their vision to build the next chapter of growth. We are deeply grateful to our existing limited partners for their continued confidence in Stride and delighted to welcome a few new partners to the Stride family. We are equally thankful to our entire team, whose hard work, judgment and commitment to our founders and partner brands made this milestone possible. We also wanted to thank Campbell Lutyens and Latham & Watkins for their continued partnership and support to close Fund II. Thanks also to John Hyatt and the team at Forbes for the opportunity to share our story. We have accomplished a lot together — and we feel like we are just getting started. #Consumer #GrowthEquity #PassionBrands https://lnkd.in/dNSZqVbDFrom Covid-Era Van Pitches To $550 Million: Stride Consumer Partners Closes Fund IIFrom Covid-Era Van Pitches To $550 Million: Stride Consumer Partners Closes Fund II
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Sara Brooks liked thisSara Brooks liked thisTIME included me on their list TIME100 Next 2026 list. I know lists can be silly, but feeling seen is not — I was surprised and grateful to see that Ankler Media's Janice Min, who I have long looked up to, wrote the writeup for my spot on the list. Thank you to everyone who has read, worked with, or told friends about Feed Me. I'm having so much fun. https://lnkd.in/ggRTcCBC
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Sara Brooks liked thisSara Brooks liked thisHow can a small VC firm produce Founderland? Easy answer. We don't. My wife Shannon Kelly does. Without her and her team working year-round to build this invite-only, 1,000+ person B2B festival... The Family Fund wouldn't be able to produce anything remotely close to this. We need to spend the far majority of our time investing and helping our PortCo founders win. So when I had the idea for Founderland a few years ago, there was only one reason I wasn't looked at as if I was insane... It's because Shannon is our secret weapon. And prior to running events and experiences at our fund, spent years building Coachella, the Long Beach Grand Prix, Outside Lands and other scintillating shows. Sure, Josh Wand and I need to get the right people to the event...and that matters immensely... But the majority of the credit for what Founderland has become belongs to Shannon and her team. You're incredible Shannon. I'm honored to be your partner in more ways than one. Thank you from all of us at The Family Fund. Let's roll!
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