How Charlotte Cruze Built Alice Mushrooms Into a $20+M Brand in 4 Years | We Mean Business

From producing for NBC’s Today Show to co-founding a $20M+ functional chocolate powerhouse, Charlotte Cruz is a masterclass in radical career reinvention and rapid business scaling. In this episode of We Mean Business, Alice Mushrooms co-founder and COO Charlotte Cruze sits down to share the visionary strategy behind her viral, brand-forward wellness supplement. Learn how she and her bi-coastal co-founder, Lindsay Goodstein, took a functional mushroom chocolate side hustle and scaled it into over 3,000 retail stores, backing the brand with over $8 million in funding from Unilever and celebrity angels like Zac Efron, Tiesto and Pedro Pascal.

Charlotte breaks down the secrets to navigating early-stage funding, mastering cross-country co-founder relationships, and using meticulous creative ad strategy to find instant product-market fit. She dives into Alice’s unique approach to experiential and collaborative marketing - from a vintage 1969 ice cream truck at Coachella to high-profile partnerships with HBO’s The Last of Us and Joe & The Juice. Plus, Charlotte opens up about overcoming imposter syndrome as your business grows, the exact grounding practices she uses before entering a high-stakes fundraising boardroom, and her favorite AI workflow tools.

Whether you are looking to pivot your career, scale a product-based business sustainably, or learn how to trust your gut instincts in the boardroom, this episode is packed with hard-won field notes for any entrepreneur who means business.

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Explore Alice Mushrooms and discover its functional mushroom chocolates @alice.mushrooms on social or www.alicemushrooms.com

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We Mean Business is an original podcast brought to you by The Next Rodeo, in partnership with Connoisseur Media, produced by Good Mess Media, with music by JAM Music Collective.

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