Lock-In by HappyStack 🥞

This week, we sit down with Marisa Poster, the co-founder behind PerfectTed, the matcha-powered energy brand that's become Europe's biggest in under five years.A caffeine-addicted finance grad with an ADHD diagnosis she was too ashamed to admit, Marisa discovered matcha face-down in a university library after one crash too many — then moved to London and found a country that didn't sell it. Forty-five days after landing, she and her co-founders (her husband Levi and his brother Teddy) had incorporated the business. Five years on, PerfectTed is Europe's #1 matcha brand — stocked in 40,000+ points of distribution, valued at over £140m, and one of the largest matcha buyers on earth.From a matcha latte that never made it to market, to a can you can't miss on a supermarket shelf, this is a masterclass in turning a niche obsession into a mainstream category.Marisa breaks down why she treated Dragon's Den as a pure marketing play — studying every pitch that ever pulled all five offers, and memorising the exact glue on her labels in case a Dragon asked — and why she still chose Steven Bartlett's money over bigger names. She gets candid about hiding her ADHD for years, convinced it made her less credible as a founder. And she shares how PerfectTed scaled nationally on almost no paid ads, by turning supermarket shelves into billboards.She also addresses the elephant in the room — the global matcha shortage — with maybe the most honest line a founder's ever given about their own success: "I don't want to say we caused it, but…"Strategic, candid, and packed with brand lessons you won't find in a marketing textbook.Timestamps:00:00 Building Europe's #1 Matcha Brand00:50 ADHD, Anxiety & Finding Matcha in a Library03:54 Moving to London to a Country With No Matcha05:49 Why the Energy Category Overlooked Women13:01 45 Days to Incorporate & the Pivot to Cans16:18 The Name "PerfectTed" & Buying From People21:08 Dragon's Den Packaging & the "Healthy Energy" Pivot24:08 Why the Brand Is Green: Nature's Neutral27:14 Building With Her Husband & His Brother30:54 Why Fun Is a Prerequisite for Success34:20 Kickstarter Selling Out in a Day36:49 Treating Dragon's Den as a Marketing Play40:21 Choosing Steven Bartlett: "Take Smart Money"43:36 No Paid Ads & the Global Matcha Shortage45:48 Cracking Retail: Shelves as Billboards51:16 What's Next: Protein Lattes & New Categories53:33 The Heinz Collab TeaseFollow us across our socials:Twitter: https://x.com/happystackhqLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/happystackhqInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/happystackhqCheck out the HappyStack website: https://www.happystack.com/Stack the odds. 🥞#ecommerce #podcast #founder #business #happystack #thelockin

This week, we sit down with Aimee Connolly, the founder behind Sculpted by Aimee — the Irish makeup brand on track to become Ireland's first billion-dollar beauty business, still 100% owned by its founder.
___Follow us across our socials:Twitter: https://x.com/happystackhqLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/happystackhqInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/happystackhq___Check out the HappyStack website: https://www.happystack.com/Stack the odds. 🥞

This week, we sit down with Ashley McDonnell, the Galway-born founder building Ireland's first luxury goods group (VYKO) after a decade inside LVMH and Puig.Ashley walked into Christian Dior at 22 as a data analyst, ended up doing €70 million in solo travel retail sales, then spent five years scaling Puig through Europe's biggest IPO of 2024.

Now she's back home and raising €50 million to do something nobody has ever done, turn Ireland into a global luxury powerhouse.From the inside playbook on how LVMH, Puig and L'Oréal actually print money, to why every fashion brand you know is secretly a fragrance business, to the €1 billion Irish luxury market that's been quietly funnelling out of the country for decades.

Ashley breaks down the VYKO Group thesis, the 500 Irish brands she's scanned, and the playbook for building an Irish LVMH from the ground up.

This week, we sit down with Lucie MacLeod, the founder behind HairSyrup the Sunday Times Founder of the Year who built a built a million pound empire after being rejected by all 6 dragons on Dragons Den.

Lucie's story is chaos turned into strategy. She started mixing hair oils in mustard bottles in her student kitchen, gave away her formula on TikTok, then deleted her viral account. When thousands of people begged to buy her products, she ignored them. Her parents said absolutely not. She did it anyway.

From a £3.99/month website to the Dragon's Den experience that everyone saw on TV to turning rejection by all six Dragons into 22 million profile views and a 66% revenue jump. Why she refuses to chase viral tactics, deliberately runs an 8-10% affiliate model in an industry that does 80-90%, and told her TikTok account manager she'll never make £2m on a live - and doesn't want to.

Raw, funny, and packed with lessons you won't find in any startup playbook.

This week, we sit down with the founders of Spot & Tango, one of the few DTC brands that scaled to nine figures without chasing growth at all costs.

Russel and Dylan break down how they went from cooking dog food in their kitchen to building a $100M/ year pet food company, why they chose to own manufacturing instead of outsourcing, and how they perceive profitability as a responsibility and not a bonus.

From being prudent operators to dog lovers we talk about the moments where things nearly broke, the risks most founders avoid, and why they believe discipline beats speed when building something that lasts.

Honest, opinionated, and packed with real lessons, this episode is about building a durable consumer brand, making hard decisions early, and staying focused when the pressure to move faster is everywhere.