Ryan Rouse

MALK Organics

President

Self Employed

Growth Advisor

HighKey 

Chief Executive Officer (acquired)

Board Member

Chief Marketing & Ecommerce Officer

Tasseo Consumer Ecosystem

Operating Partner

Serenity Kids

Head of Growth

Factor_

Co-Founder (Acquired by Hello Fresh)

Chief Marketing Officer

Chief Operating Officer

Merrill Lynch

Vice President of Sales

Growth advisor to consumer businesses with a focus on every line of the P&L | Previously, Co-Founder at Factor Meals (acquired), CEO at Highkey

Growth-minded CPG leader with deep experience across finance, brand building, and operational leadership.

After more than a decade in finance—culminating in an eight-year tenure at Merrill Lynch—I co-founded Factor_, a ready-to-eat meal delivery company that went on to be acquired by HelloFresh for $277M in 2020.

I joined HighKey Snacks as Chief Marketing Officer and later CEO, guiding the low-sugar snack brand through rapid expansion and an acquisition in 2024.

I'm currently the President of MALK Organics, a fast-growing, near nine-figure brand redefining the plant-based milk category with its commitment to clean, organic ingredients and uncompromising quality.

And I write a newsletter about what it really takes to grow—your company, your mindset, your tolerance for chaos:
​
​• The unfiltered truth about building a brand
• Why “strategy” isn’t always strategic
• What to do when everything feels on fire
• Mindset shifts that keep you sane(ish)​
• Founder mistakes, market moves, and lessons I’m still learning​
​
​Part playbook, part perspective shift.
For anyone trying to grow something—and keep their head on straight.

Sign up using the link here (or below my profile pic above): https://ryanrouse.me/

Vice President | Partner

Data driven investors in early stage consumer brands. 

We've normalized something insane.

Two people typing at each other for 35 minutes.

Typing gives us time to be clever. To craft the perfect comeback. To sound right while being wrong.

Talking forces us to be human.

No edit button. No screenshots for later. No audience watching you perform.

Just two people working it out in real time.

The friction you feel before picking up the phone and calling?

That's your ego protecting itself.

It knows the keyboard is safer.

But relationships aren't built in safety.

They're built in the messy, unedited moments when you actually hear someone's voice.

Next time you're about to send that long message?

Pick up the phone instead.

You'll be shocked how fast "enemies" become teammates when you remove the screen between you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you liked this post, you'll love my emails. No BS musings from 12+ years in the trenches building brands.

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Never Been on a Forbes List | President at MALK Organics | Daddy at Rouse House | Previously: Co-Founder & CMO at Factor_, CEO at Highkey

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The startup world worships charisma.

Big personalities. Bold promises. Slick pitches.

But I've watched too many charismatic founders flame out.

And too many quiet operators build empires.

Here's what I learned:

Charisma opens doors. Character keeps them open.

Charisma raises the round. Character delivers the returns.

The market rewards charisma in the short term. But it pays character in the long run.

Use your charisma to sell the vision.
Use your character to build the business.

I'm curious: Think about the best leader you've ever worked with.

Were they the most charismatic person in the room, or did they have something deeper that made you follow them?


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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The more polished your corporate language, the less your employees believe a word you say.

Early in my startup career, I'd craft these perfect all-hands emails. 

"We're excited to announce strategic realignment initiatives that will optimize our organizational effectiveness."

Translation: We're laying people off.

My team saw right through it.

And it created distrust and disengagement.

So I changed my approach.

Instead of "pursuing growth opportunities," I started saying "we're trying something new and honestly, we're not sure if it'll work."

Instead of "navigating headwinds," I said "this quarter sucked and here's why."

It was uncomfortable at first.

But the team started asking real questions instead of nodding politely.

And they started to trust me more when things got hard because they knew I wouldn't sugarcoat it.

I remember the first time I told my team "I don't have a good answer for that yet" in a meeting. 

Someone was brave enough to say "thank you for not making something up."

People don't want perfect messaging from their leaders.

They want honest communication about what's really happening and how it affects them.

Even if you don't know. 

Your team can handle the truth. 

What they can't handle is being treated like they're too naive to see through corporate BS. 

Every euphemism you use is a withdrawal from the trust bank.

And that account doesn't have overdraft protection.

There's no finish line where suddenly you feel like you made it.

No magic number that makes the doubt disappear.

No age where you finally stop comparing yourself to the 28-year-old who just raised $50M.

We're all out here pretending we're on schedule while secretly terrified we're falling behind.

The woman who sold at 32 thinks he peaked too early.

The guy grinding at 50 thinks she started too late.

The kid raising millions thinks he's a fraud.

None of us know what we're doing.

We're just making different mistakes at different speeds.

Your career isn't late.

It's not early either.

It's just yours.

And the only way to lose is to stop showing up because you think you missed some imaginary deadline.

Keep building.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Every morning at 5:30 AM, my alarm goes off.

And I have a choice.

Hit snooze and skip my workout, or get up and move.

That's the first battle of the day.

Success isn't some climactic moment where everything falls into place.

It's winning thousands of these small fights. Day after day.

The decision to kill a product you spent 18 months developing because it clearly doesn't work. 

The discipline to skip the third glass of wine at dinner so you can think more clearly in tomorrow's meeting.

The courage to fire someone who's good but not great.

There is no one final battle.

No last job.

No riding off into the sunset.

These micro battles never stop.

And the moment you accept that?

The pressure to "arrive" disappears.

You stop waiting for some future version of success.

You start finding it in the discipline of showing up when it's hard.

In choosing the right move over the easy one.

In winning today's battles so you're ready for tomorrow's.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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What if choosing not to be offended was the most powerful decision you could make today?

Most leaders don't realize they're handing control of their day to people who don't matter.

I've spent 15+ years in executive roles. Built teams. Navigated acquisitions. Raised 3 kids.

Many years ago, someone's criticism would completely derail me.

I'd stew on it for hours.  

But that person? Living their life. Completely unbothered.

The only person suffering was me.

It made me recognize that offense is a choice.

Not a reflex. A choice.

Now when someone tries to push my buttons, I pause and choose whether or not to engage. And how to engage if I choose to. 

I'm protecting what matters: me.

Your reaction gives other people control over your day.

Your non-reaction or calm reaction gives you back your power.

So here's my question:

Who are you letting live in your head that doesn't deserve to be there?


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you liked this post, you'll love my emails. No BS musings from 12+ years in the trenches building brands.

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Being late to every meeting isn't a personality quirk. 

It's a character flaw. 

And it's costing you more than you think. 

It's like your friend who couldn't handle their alcohol and had to be baby sat every night. At first everyone's like "Oh, that's just Jeff/Julie."'

But you know what happened over time? Less and less people hung out with Jeff and Julie. 

Same goes here. 

Every time you're late to a meeting, you're showing showing people you can't be trusted with the small things.

Trust with the small things leads to trust with the big ones.

The opportunities that require trust:
- Leading a team
- Managing a budget
- Representing the company
- Taking on a big project

None of those happen if people don't trust you with the basics.

And being on time is the most basic thing there is.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you liked this post, you'll love my emails. No BS musings from 12+ years in the trenches building brands.

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The higher you climb, the lonelier it gets.

I learned this from 25 years of chasing the top.

It's odd though. The higher you get, the less people you can talk to about it. 

Can't vent to your team about the pressure.

Can't ask your boss the "dumb" questions ('cause you don't have one).

And you definitely can't admit when you're figuring it out as you go.

So I started writing.

Not corporate memos. Not LinkedIn humble brags.

Real talk about what it's actually like to lead.

The messy product launches.

The budget fights that keep you up at night.

The people decisions that haunt you.

The wins that nobody sees coming.

Look, I know how this sounds.

Another exec with a newsletter.

But if you're tired of feeling like you're the only one struggling with this stuff, I write about it every week in my newsletter.

No BS. Just truth.

Link in the comments if you're interested.

I've watched good companies crumble from the inside out.

Not because of market conditions or bad products.

Because they let weak leadership linger.

Your team sees it before you do.

And every day you wait, they lose a little more belief.

Not just in that one leader.

In you. In the vision. In whether any of it matters.

The damage compounds faster than you think.

And by the time it's obvious to you, half your best people are already mentally checked out.

So when you know someone isn't cutting it, act.

Yes, transitions are messy.

Yes, there will be short-term pain.

But nothing restores faith in a team faster than watching leadership actually lead.

I've never been the smartest person in the room.

But I have been the most dangerous.

Not because I know more.

Because I know less.

My first few months at MALK, I was like a broken record.

"What's the reason for that?"
"Who decided this?"
"What happens if we skip it?"

I've done the same thing at business I get involved with. 

Turns out, most companies run on autopilot.

Someone built a process years ago because they needed something fast.
It stuck.

Not because it was good.

Because it was there.

Your processes aren't best practices.

They're fossils.

Fresh eyes see the waste you've gone blind to.
Here's what works:

Hire people with fresh eyes. 

Give them permission to be annoying.

Let them question everything.

Document every "why?"

Most answers will be "I don't know" or "that's just how it's done."

That's your gold mine.

Each "I don't know" is money left on the table.

Each "that's how we've always done it" is a process begging to be killed.

What process exists at your company only because "that's how it's always been done"?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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The cost of handing out fancy titles too soon is real. 

Early on at Factor_, we couldn't afford top talent.

So we did what a lot of founders do.

We gave people VP and Director titles to make up for the salary gap.

Seemed smart at the time.

They got the prestige. We saved cash.

But a title doesn't teach someone how to do the job.

It doesn't give them the reps. The pattern recognition. The instincts that come from years on the job.

And when you realize someone isn't ready for the role they're in, you've got a real problem.

Because now you can't just adjust their responsibilities.

You have to demote them or move them out.

Which is brutal for everyone involved.

The title that was supposed to solve a problem becomes the problem.

Looking back now, I wish I'd been straight with people about where they actually were.

Not where I needed them to be.

Give them a role they can handle today. 

Let them earn the next one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you liked this post, you'll love my emails. No BS musings from 12+ years in the trenches building brands.

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Everyone's building a personal brand. But personal credibility should be the goal. 

I see it every day.

People obsessing over their LinkedIn banner design while their actual work speaks nothing.

Crafting the perfect thought leader bio while delivering mediocre results.

Posting motivational quotes they don't live by.

Here's what they don't get:

Personal brand is what you tell people you are.
Personal credibility is what you prove you are.

One is manufactured. The other is earned.

You can buy a personal brand. Hire a ghostwriter. Use AI to pump out content. Get those vanity metrics up.

But credibility?

That comes from one place: Doing.

Delivering on promises when nobody's watching.
Admitting when you're wrong instead of doubling down.
Sharing real failures, not just humble brags disguised as lessons.

The most credible people I know barely think about their "brand."

They're too busy actually building things. Solving problems. Creating value.

Their reputation spreads through whisper networks, not viral posts.

Want to stand out in 2025?

Stop polishing your image.
Start delivering results.

Because at the end of the day, your personal brand is just marketing.

Your personal credibility is your actual product.

And people can smell the difference from a mile away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Being a 6/10 across many functions will serve you more than being a 10/10 in one.

But you typically have to get to a 9/10 in one area to earn the opportunity to oversee the others. 

The hard part for most people is being comfortable going from a 9/10 in something down to a 6/10 in order to create time to go from a 2/10 to a 6/10 in the others.

They can’t let go of being best in class at the one thing. 

Which limits their ability to to lead.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Congrats to all who made the Forbes list. 

I did not. Therefore, my headline remains in tact.

You survived the launch. You got early traction.

So why does year three feel harder than year one?

Because in year one, you'd work 24/7 and love it.

The adrenaline was real. Every win felt like validation.

You didn't need sleep. You didn't need breaks.

You had rocket fuel in your veins.

But years 2-5...

The adrenaline runs out.

And when it does, the grinding reality sets in.

34.4% of founders experience burnout.

Not in year one when you're supposed to be struggling.

In years 2-5, when you're supposed to have it figured out.

Year one, you're running on pure excitement and fear.

That combination keeps you moving even when you're exhausted.

But years 2-5? That's when the wheels come off.

The excitement fades. The fear becomes background noise.

What's left is just the grind.

No finish line in sight.

Revenue looks healthy. Team is growing.

But you're running on empty.

And you don't realize it's happening.

You think you're just tired. You think it's a rough month.

You tell yourself you'll take a break soon.

But soon never comes.

Because now you've got:

• A team depending on you
• Investors expecting growth
• Customers needing support
• A reputation to protect

You can't just stop anymore.

The thing about founder burnout is it doesn't announce itself.

It shows up in small ways first.

You start dreading Monday mornings.

Emails sit unread for days.

Decision-making gets harder.

Your patience with your team gets thinner.

Then one day you wake up and realize: You don't remember the last time you felt excited about this.

The data backs this up.

Founders in their middle years report higher rates of anxiety and depression than in year one.

Not because things are going worse.

Because things are going exactly as expected.

And that's somehow harder to handle than the chaos.

If you're in those middle years right now, here's what I'd tell you:

The 24/7 hustle isn't sustainable.

It never was.

Year one, you could get away with it because the adrenaline covered the cost.

But you can't run a marathon on sprint energy.

And building a lasting company is a marathon.

Take the break. Build the boundaries. Protect your mental health.

Not because it's nice to have.

Because your business won't survive if you don't.

I spend my days analyzing consumer behavior, market trends, etc.

But my wife always points out something I completely missed.

Last month, we were arguing about why the kids kept leaving their water bottles everywhere.

I said it was a discipline problem.

She said it was a design problem.

The bottles were too heavy when full. Too awkward to carry. The lids leaked in their backpacks.

So they just... stopped using them.

I had been so focused on the behavior, I missed the product failure.

We do this in our industry. 

Blame "disloyal" customers instead of asking if our packaging is annoying to open or if our product fits in their pantry.

My wife doesn't work in CPG.

She doesn't know (or care) what a P&L is.

But she sees a ton of things I don't.

The tiny annoyances. The small frustrations. The gap between what we promise and what actually works in real life.

Here’s hoping you all have a "Lindsay" involved in the product development process.

I used to think talking about anything besides work was a waste of time.

As a founder, my life was the business.

Every minute counted.

So when team members wanted to chat about their weekend, their kids, their hobbies?

I'd nod politely and steer us back to the agenda.

I thought I was being efficient.

I was actually building walls.

Because my team had lives outside work.

Just because I had no other interests didn't mean they didn't.

The shift happened when I started asking questions. Actually listening to the answers.

Turns out, people open up when you take genuine interest in them.

The trust runs deeper. The feedback gets more honest. The work gets better.
And they stop leaving.

Relationships aren't built in conference rooms.

They're built in the margins.

The random detours in meetings that are completely off topic.

The walk to the parking lot.

The random Slack message about their kid's soccer game.

That's where teams become more than just people who work together.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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You can't be great at everything.

And that's actually the point.

The bell curve is undefeated. Small percentage who are elite. Small percentage who are terrible. Large percentage in the middle.

It applies to everything - career, relationships, fitness, hobbies.

Where it gets interesting is when you stack bell curves on top of one another.

Elite in one area almost always means average or terrible in others.

The math doesn't lie.

Which means you have to pick.

Which areas of life you want to be on the upper end of the curve?

And how far down that curve do you want to go?

All those choices have trade offs. 

Personally, I want to be in the 90th percentile in family, career, and health. 

That's above average, but not elite. 

Being in the 90th percentile in all of them means I can't be in the 98th percentile in any. 

It also means I can't even be in the 60th percentile in other things that aren't on my list. 

Some people choose differently. They go all-in on one thing. Become truly elite.

They accept being below average everywhere else.

Neither approach is wrong.

What's wrong is pretending you can be elite at everything.

The trade-off is real whether you acknowledge it or not.

So pick your bell curves.

And stop lying to yourself about the ones you didn't pick.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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The DTC era taught founders a dangerous lesson.

You could skip the hard work of understanding your category.

Build a brand, tell a story, sell direct.

No need to obsess over shelf placement, competitive sets, or how retailers think about your space.

But shoppers still compare you to everything else in the category.

They always have.

Whether your product sits next to competitors on a shelf or shows up alone on your website doesn't matter.

A lot of digitally native brands tried to move into retail and got crushed. 

Because they never did the foundational work.

They didn't know their category cold.

Didn't understand how it's priced, how it's merchandised, how it's managed, how decisions get made.

That knowledge used to be non-negotiable.

Before DTC, founders had no choice but to become category experts first.

It was the only path to market.

Now it's optional.

And that optionality is killing brands.

You can't win in CPG without being obsessed with your category.

Not just your product.

The entire space you're competing in.

That's table stakes.

Helping ambitious entrepreneurs scale their business using a proven, principles-centered framework 📈 Professor @ DU 📚 New Book (Now Available): "Ready, Set, SCALE! Scaling Your Business, Without Losing Your Soul" 📣

An entrepreneur who has preserved his soul while building, scaling and selling four companies, Stephen is wildly passionate about creating successful businesses and developing leaders to build extraordinary organizations.  A few high-level accomplishments: 

⭐️ 3x Inc. 500 Winner (three consecutive years, 2019,-20,-21)

⭐️ 3x Finalist, EY Entrepreneur of the Year 

⭐️ Inc. Best in Business award

⭐️ Best Boss in America (Top 10 Finalist)

Whether labeled as a serial entrepreneur, maverick CEO, or disruptive business leader, Stephen is an entrepreneur who leads from his heart and is wildly passionate about finding opportunities within problems, scaling companies to sell, while mentoring the next generation of leaders. 

Fresh out of college, Stephen started with EAS, where they grew to $220-million in sales and he set up distribution networks in 55 countries around the world. Next, he borrowed $50,000 from a friend of the family to start iSatori; where as the CEO, lead the Company public, through a merger with FitLife Brands (Stock Symbol "FTLF"), and exited in 2016. 

Over those years, Stephen has created, scaled and sold several dietary supplement brands, those greatest and most successful innovations being Voots, Energize, Living Orchards, BioGenetic Laboratories, and his crown jewell--BIO-GRO Bio-active Peptides--creating an entirely new product category. To date, these healthy product innovations have generated over $1-billion in retail sales. 

Stephen’s latest venture, QuickBox Fulfillment #onaMISSION (awarded Inc. 500, 2019-21), started with four incredibly talented partners, designed for e-commerce companies' order fulfillment, while fulfilling its mission to give people in their surrounding communities a "second chance" with a place to work. In 2019, Stephen and his co-founder group entered into a private equity transaction, and after 5.5 magical years as the CEO of QuickBox, he has transitioned into an active Board Member. 

At this stage in life, Stephen is focused on rejuvenating his self worth, and his family, giving back to the next generation as an adjunct professor at the Daniels School of Business at the University of Denver, and working with a select few business founders that want to benefit from his hard-earned wisdom, and who have the courage to implement it, so they can infinitely scale to breakthrough the $100-million mark.

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