Hannah Perez: Co-Founder of SEEQ

Episode 756

On today’s episode, Kara welcomes Hannah Perez, Co-Founder of SEEQ — the protein brand shaking up the supplement aisle with its clear, refreshing take on traditional protein drinks. With a vision to create something that felt more like a fruit juice than a chalky shake, Hannah and her co-founder launched SEEQ out of their apartment and quickly built a brand that’s gone viral on social media and found its way onto major retail shelves.
Hannah shares the early days of SEEQ, how she helped pioneer the clear protein category, and how bold branding, community-building, and an obsessive focus on product experience helped them stand out in a crowded wellness space. We dive into her founder journey, her evolving leadership role, and what it takes to turn a niche idea into a breakout CPG brand. Whether you're in CPG, fitness, or dreaming up your next big idea — this episode is full of insights and inspiration. Don’t miss it!

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up, that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be you. Just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked out, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control, control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs and really, some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Goldin show today. I’m joined by Hannah Perez, who is the co founder and brand visionary of Seeq the clear protein brand that’s reimagining what protein drinks can be and bringing something refreshing, approachable and bold, into a category that’s long felt heavy, cloudy and formulaic, and Hannah and her co founder launched Seeq, I guess we’re going on the fourth anniversary, and during the pandemic, starting from blending samples in their apartment to now being stocked in major retailers and building a cult following on Tiktok. So she’s led the brand through early supply chain challenges, viral moments and the shift to retail and evolving her own role from marketer to brand visionary. So I cannot wait to talk all about Seeq and her journey, her experience, and how it all came to life, how she’s felt about scaling and breaking into a category people don’t yet truly understand, and how she balances both the storytelling with the operational rigor necessary to do what she’s doing. So Hannah, welcome to the Kara Goldin show. So excited. You’re here.

Hannah Perez 2:10
Thank you for having me. What an intro.

Kara Goldin 2:12
Yeah, totally I love Well, first of all, if you can actually see Hannah, she’s wearing the most beautiful orange, bright orange. And she has all of her, or maybe not all of them, but many of her SKUs right up above her, and just incredible packaging. I like want to just put those in my room. I mean, they’re just so bright and cheery, like they’re just, I love it, and I’m sure that they just pull off of the shelf, especially if people know what the product is and what it tastes like, which it’s pretty terrific. So So to kick it off, I’d love for you to describe Seeq in your own words. And what problem did you set out to solve when you founded, or co founded the company?

Hannah Perez 3:04
Yeah, totally. Well, I loved what you just shared, too, just even about our packaging and how I show up. And I think it’s a big reflection of the brand and itself. And what we say in that company is, you know, we really want to bring the juice. And what does that mean? You know, it’s this energy. It’s this feeling that you get when you interact with our brand. We’re fun. We’re vibrant in a wellness space that can feel ultimately very intimidating and restrictive. We wanted to create something that felt fun, approachable, easy to consume every day. So for me personally, I grew up, you know, playing sports. I’m very active now in my late 20s, and I worked at a supplement store through college, and was very close to the industry, and I was drinking protein, you know, making all the recipes, getting the whole kitchen sink out to make something I could actually enjoy. And when me and my co founder reconnected and tried this product of clear protein. It was my first experience trying it. And sometimes you’re met with a solution to a problem that you didn’t even know you were facing. And I had the aha moment that many of our customers have, where I couldn’t believe it was protein that I was drinking because it was so similar to a sports drink. It’s still a protein that has all the same benefits of any other thick and milky traditional protein, just without the sacrifice of not enjoying it. So that was the kind of moment for me in my own personal story with the product itself. But we’re really trying to just shake things up and how people feel about moving and changing that stigma of, you know, protein only being for the bodybuilder or the strength trainer, and showing that, you know, movement can look however you want it to feel. And that’s, I think, really important in this space.

Kara Goldin 4:52
Yeah, definitely. So how did you come up with the name Seeq?

Hannah Perez 4:56
So Seeq, again, I think it’s so interesting to see. How you don’t know the seeds that you’re planting and what flowers are going to bloom later is oftentimes what I say. And when me and my co founder were creating the business, we were looking for a short motivational word that wasn’t trademarked, and many of them are already trademarked, so we actually put our ideas into a random more generator, and it spit out this misspelling of Seeq. And I think now, being the brand visionary, I’ve gotten to really sit and reflect with our brand story and our own personal core values and the company’s core values. And, you know, having that growth mindset of always Seeqing more and who do you Seeq to become, and having that reflective question behind what originally started as we just want something motivational has now transformed into something that we can really build stories behind with our consumers, definitely.

Kara Goldin 5:54
So tell me about how you and your co founder first met and how you decided to start Seeq together. Yeah.

Hannah Perez 6:02
So we originally met at a creative agency that we were both working at in college. I was already at that point, pursuing a full time career at that agency, and he was an intern at the agency, just wanting to learn about social media marketing. And we had connected at that point, but his internship only lasted a few months, and for me, I was applying any of my skill sets to any business idea that was coming my way through college, because I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur and just wanted to get my reps in. So about a year later, at this point the agency, we’ve decided we’re all going to go separate ways. I was going to take over that agency. And we were, like, in the last couple weeks of all working in office together, and Ben walked through the office, and I haven’t seen him in a year, and he’s like, Hey, I think I want to start this business. This was also out of covid. Like, we’re at this point, fall of 2020, he graduated with a mechanical engineering degree, but at that point, it was really challenging to get a job in covid for anyone that was just graduating college. So his thoughts were, why not go in on this idea? He had the same experience as me with clear protein, where he tried it for the first time from one of his friends, and he couldn’t believe that this wasn’t the main thing people were drinking out after a workout. And so he was trying to just get proof of concept, and that’s why he landed back at the agency. Was to give us these samples, and again, me being very hungry, to apply my skill sets to something to build. I offered my help, and we started working on it that following day, and the rest is kind of history. It was just a continuous time for me to spend with him and build something that we both really believed in.

Kara Goldin 7:52
So when you looked at packaging, you came from the agency side, but i Were you familiar with packaging outside. There’s a lot of different aspects of agency work, but we’re how, like, how did you think about packaging, and especially as it related to your drink? Like, did you think about it as, like, from the get go, that it’s going to be bright and we need to, like, pull off the shelf. I mean, just tell me sort of about, like, what, what you were concerned about, I guess, in launching a drink, because it’s risky, right? And packaging is so, so key. It really is.

Hannah Perez 8:33
And you know, coming from my background, working at a supplement store, and just our own experiences, from both myself and Ben going in and shopping supplements and vitamins and things in the health and wellness space, it can feel very intimidating. It can feel very sterile. It can feel either very hyper masculine and oftentimes unapproachable or hyper feminine and not relatable. And we could see that ourselves as consumers, and then we could also point to other categories that you could see the shift in packaging and how people were showing up on shelf in the beverage space and in other areas of the grocery store where it’s like, okay, we’re seeing this evolution of more modern, more simplified packaging, more bright and vibrant packaging on the shelf in other categories. How can we apply that to the supplement category without it, you know, taking away from the actual benefits of the products? I think some people can look at our packaging and think it’s maybe too fun, it’s too useful, and it doesn’t have that medicinal, you know, science backed feeling, but because we are protein. We really believe that it’s important that this is something that you want want to consume every day, that it’s exciting, and it’s a part of your day that can lift you up. So we were like, Okay, if we want to create that feeling, then we want our product to look and feel that way too. We want it to be bright and fun and approachable to both men and women and any walk. Of life. So that was kind of the original, like reflection. And then through that, I’m biased, because I like to think that I have a good sense of fashion and a good sense of design when I see it. Grew up watching HGTV, wanted to be an interior designer at one point where I have this, this vision, and then I think Ben is able to really help ground that out as well with his own just perspective of what looks good and what feels good. So we’ve really ran a lot of the business, at least at the very beginning, off of a lot of intuition with what we believe is the right decision to make. And I think our packaging is a great proof of concept there.

Kara Goldin 10:36
I love it. So it’s funny, I remember when we were developing hint. I mean, it’s been the bottle, and the label has been adjusted over the years, but we didn’t use a branding agency or packaging Agency, and the bottle changed slightly, but, but it, you know, really came from I I knew exactly what this was going to look like, and I can’t even describe exactly. Did I see one product and want it just like that? Because nobody was really looking like the hint design at the time. And so, so anyway, I can only imagine you just being around the space too, that you’re picking it up from a lot of different places, like what you liked about different products and packaging that was out there. So when you think about the early experiments and prototypes, whether it was the actual formulation of the product or it could also be the packaging too. But how did you go from concept to actually a working product? And again, it could be a recipe or whatever, but what was, what like, sort of jogs your memory or triggers your memory to those times when you were thinking about, Okay, I’ve got this idea, but then how do I actually get it to the point where I can go and sell it?

Hannah Perez 12:07
Yeah, yeah. I always think it’s just so important when you have a big goal that you break it down into what is that first step that you can take? Because there is a first step. And I think a lot of people stop because they see the big goal, and they just don’t even know where to start, and for us, it was, well, we just need to try the product. We need to find people who make the product and who make protein and see if they are able to do this. So we type in on Google local manufacturers for whey protein, and we find a list of tons of manufacturers across the United States that we just started emailing, and Ben was taking the initiative to email from his MSU email our school. So it’s this college kid that you’re getting an email from at the very beginning, which we had so many conversations with different manufacturers. And I’m just, I’m just grateful that they even replied and took us seriously at that time. And we received some samples of the product from from a bunch of different manufacturers, and we really just started trying it. Certain manufacturers we had to pay for these samples. Other ones, we could get them for free, because they’re betting on the the long term game of working with you. So they part, or they it’s part of their process in partnering. And so we got a bunch of samples. We tried a bunch of samples, and we really enjoyed these, one specific samples from this manufacturer, and they had a minimum order for us that if we wanted to order one flavor, it would be a minimum of 2000 bottles that we would have to order. We wanted to launch with two flavors. Again, we’re fresh out of college. We have no plan of, like, raising money or anything at this point. Like, we really just wanted to bootstrap this business. And we were like, Okay, let’s push this manufacturer to the side, because that’s going to be a, like, damn near six figure investment, and we don’t have that. So let’s continue for the next, you know, six, nine months, looking for other manufacturers who can do it at a lower quantity. We do all of that diligence, and it was very challenging to find somebody who can make the product actually taste good, because there’s a lot of little things with clear protein that ultimately make it taste good, and the experience with it is very unique compared to traditional thick and milky protein. When you mix it, it does foam up. So we needed to find a manufacturer who when the foam, you know, obviously, when you shake in, the foam happens that it condenses down quickly, that you actually mask the protein taste, because it still is a whey protein. So there’s little things with the actual product itself and refinements and these other manufacturers, we just couldn’t find a way to make it work with them, that we ended up going back to that first manufacturer. So that was ultimately the first, like 12 months of me and Ben behind the scenes. Before we launched the business, just looking for a manufacturer, and that was our first step. And then while we were looking for that manufacturer, we were looking at packaging and the name and all the little things in between of how we’re going to market this whenever we do get it brought to life. But that first step was just making sure we have a good product to sell.

Kara Goldin 15:17
So ultimately, when you found that manufacturer? I, I’m sure that there were many people who almost made it impossible, right for you to be able to manufacture with them. I, you know, I think whether you have it an ingredient that they’re not familiar with, or they’re quickly looking at your LinkedIn bio or your, you know, whatever you’re telling them that you’ve done. I mean, they want to not believe before they actually believe. Like, what did you do to sort of get over that hurdle too? Because I think so much of the time people just give up because they’re just like, no one is going to believe me. I’m just like a kid out of college, like, you know, I don’t have any experience in this, but like, what sort of drove you and what gave you the resilience to just say, Nope, I’m going to keep going and figure this out.

Hannah Perez 16:18
Yeah, that’s a great question. I think I say this oftentimes, but walking the walk and talking the talk, it’s so important, you know, even if you don’t believe you have the skill set to do it, or you’re, you know, too young, or I’ve been in rooms where it’s like, oh, but I’m the only female in this room, and I’m only I’m under 20 years old, in certain scenarios where I was doing sales and stuff growing up, where I’ve had to be in that position in the past, of just being resilient and saying, I know I have the chops for this, and I know that I can persevere through this and make it happen. I’m really the delusional optimist, the one that believes anything is possible, that you can become anything you want in this world. And through that, I think mindset, it’s just something that continuing to put one step in front of the other. And then also, I think it really is something to say when it when it comes to having a co founder and having somebody also deeply believe in what you’re building gives more fuel to the fire. Where, in many situations, whether it was Ben or myself, and it’s us questioning things. We’re able to pick each other up and make sure that we can continue to push forward through this. So I think oftentimes it’s like, What room are you in? What information do you need to know that will make them take you seriously in some way and just continue to push forward? And at the end of the day, you will find your people by continuing to take one step in front of the other, even if it’s not the one that you think is going to be the one that takes the bet on you, somebody will take a bet on you.

Kara Goldin 17:46
Yeah, definitely. At what point did you sense that Seeq could actually scale beyond your apartment and like and become something that eventually would have as many SKUs as you have sitting behind you, and you know, really be in inside of retailers on the shelf, if that’s what you initially chose to do. I think you initially were doing direct to consumer, but then you ended up going into retail. But when did you get the confidence that Seeq is going to happen?

Hannah Perez 18:26
Yeah, that moment happened after we had launched the business. So we ended up going back to that original manufacturer with the 2000 minimum order for each flavor. So we launched with two flavors, 4000 units. My co founder’s parents ended up taking all of their money out of stocks to invest into our business, because they deeply believed in what we were building as well. And we turned their entire house in Plymouth, Minnesota into our our warehouse. You know, you’d walk in their living room, and from floor to ceiling, you would see Seeq bottles and his parents, you know, packing orders, his younger siblings packing orders. And when we first launched, we knew we didn’t have any other investment to put towards any traditional marketing. So we went all in on Tiktok and specifically running things through my co founders page, because he wanted to really lean in and be the face of this business and show what it looks like to build a business in public. And so we leaned into that and just continued to try new concepts of creative that we thought would take off. And I think Ben probably posted, you know, a few dozen videos before we had the idea to go out on the streets of Minneapolis, Minnesota, sample our product and just get people’s live reactions. Because ultimately, that same aha moment that both me and Ben had trying the product, we knew we could recreate that with others and film it and then have that translated to that same aha moment people could have by watching someone else. So we went out on the streets, filmed these, these sampling videos. Get. People’s reactions, and through that, we had our first viral video. So when we ordered those 4000 units, you know, we thought we could be sitting on that inventory for a year. Had no idea when we would sell it out. I was running my own small marketing agency at the time. I was like, maybe I can make this work where I hire some people on my team and have it be a business that I’m spending only a couple hours in. I had all these ideas for where the next, you know, 12 months, was going to take me in 2022, and at this point, we’re having a couple viral hits with the sampling videos. We’ve sold, you know, a couple 100 products. At this point, awesome. We’re feeling this momentum. And then we started this series on Tiktok around Shark Tank, and through that series, we caught the attention of Jake Cuban. Jake Cuban is Mark Cuban’s son, and we saw an order come through for Jake Cuban in Dallas, Texas. And we like, we really couldn’t believe it. We Google Earth the address we were like, this is for sure, Mark Cuban’s house. We have to do something with content, because we were so content driven to get his attention somehow. And we tracked when the order was going to be delivered. We were planning when we were going to post something. Ben is up writing a script, and we get a notification that day that Mark Cuban just tagged you in a video on Tiktok. And through that, I mean, our jaws were on the floor, like we could not believe it. He was rating our product A 10 out of 10, and at that point we were like 75% sold out. But you can imagine that Mark Cuban posting about your product will will give you that extra boost. And we ended up selling out all of our inventory. So those 4000 units lasted about 45 days. We were at the end of, you know, quarter four in 2021 just launched, and at that point it was like, wow, we really have something here. And this can be, you know, a household name brand. This can be a category that really blows up. And now four years later, there’s brands launching a clear protein every other day. It feels like,

Kara Goldin 22:06
yeah, definitely. So what was it in your post, on your Tiktok post, that caught his attention? Did you ever figure that out? I mean, how did you find out about it?

Hannah Perez 22:17
I think because it was correlated with Shark Tank that his son had seen the series, because Ben was posting that series about every single day. It was a new video showing the journey to getting on Shark Tank. And I think Jake was really the ones pulling the strings and bought the product. Really wanted his dad to post something on Tiktok, because he loved it himself. That I really think the only reason Mark posted anything was because Jake was so bought in and he’s a good dad, so he posted the video on on Tiktok. And then we actually did pursue we were like, wow. Okay, well, the shark himself is telling us we need to get on Shark Tank. Maybe we should actually consider filling out this form. And we ended up going through that process. We didn’t go on the show. Thankfully, it worked out, I think, in our favor, because we were sold out for six months out of the like eight months before we were going to go on, and we would have gotten eaten up by the sharks, I’m sure of it. But now you know, four years later, it might be in, might be in our deck.

Kara Goldin 23:18
Yeah, definitely. So there’s often tension between speed and quality, right? And also innovation, sort of flows in there as well. But how have you navigated that in building Seeq, you started out with twos, and you know, you’ve, you’ve had a lot to do, right? A lot going on. I mean, every day, as I share with people who have not enjoyed the founder experience or participated, I should say, in a founder experience like, you know, there’s just so much on your plate, and often that will even change, right? When there’s a, you know, some issue that comes up, or some new opportunity that comes up that you hear about, that you have to sort of rearrange everything in order to make that work. But how do you deal with, like, the tension between, like, going really fast and just doing it all and making sure that things are really done right, and that the quality remains,

Hannah Perez 24:23
yeah, yeah. I think it was honestly a blessing in disguise that we had sold out so quickly in those first 45 days, because it really allowed us to slow down. We didn’t have any other choice, because we didn’t have another round of inventory showing up for at least a couple months, we weren’t anticipating to sell out so fast, and so we got to take that time to really sit down and reflect around. What is the next 12 months look like? What does the next three years look like? What does the next 10 years look like? And really just be one in the blue sky, thinking the next 10 years and getting us excited about some dream partnerships or dream retailers. And actually, in that moment. For the three years that we were kind of looking ahead to, we had put on that, that three year list, get into Target nationwide, which would have brought us to December 2024 which is ultimately when we did launch into Target nationwide. So that’s just a fun story in that moment, but I think just going back to answer your question, I think it’s so important to get clear around the business that you’re building, and not just looking one week ahead, but looking ahead of one year, of three years, of 10 years, and then revisiting that, you know, every three months or six months or so, and making sure that what you’re doing and your day to day is actually leading up to that. And if you know things come your way, I call it, you know, in the entrepreneurship world, shiny object syndrome. It happens all the time, especially when you’re young and you’re growing something. There’s so many different opportunities that people will highlight and point out to you and say, how have you heard of this? Or Or what about this? And it’s so easy to get excited about it because someone else is getting excited about it, or other people are talking about it. But I think when you have a very clear vision and goals set, you can clearly identify, is this a distraction, or does this lead up to that big goal? So that’s something that we’ve been really, I would say, strong in from the very beginning, and then making sure that, you know, especially in the first 12 months of us launching the business, we only had what we made in revenue from the last round of inventory that we sold to then Bootstrap and put back into the business. So we could only order, you know, a little bit more inventory. We could move into a warehouse, get out of Ben’s parents house, and, you know, hire his younger brother as our warehouse manager, and just take baby steps into what we were building. And then we saw the vision of, okay, we want to keep this excitement and momentum. Let’s get a new flavor. Everyone loves a new flavor of whatever the product is, so let’s launch that new flavor. And that was blue razz was our third flavor that we launched. So it’s like, to me, it’s just baby steps and ultimately, doing what you can with what you have, and not shooting for the moon. That’s not been something that we’ve done. I’d say our riskiest bet that we’ve made was ordering 4000 units of protein on Ben’s parents, you know, stocks. That was the biggest bet that we took at that time. And now we’re taking bigger bets four years later, as we’ve, you know, scaled into retail, we have new doors that are knocking on our on ours to go into in 2026 and, yeah, it’s ultimately just making the right decision, the best decision you can make at the time, but knowing things are going to change, I think that’s just the the journey of entrepreneurship is you don’t get the luxury to wait too long to see all the whole picture of if I make this decision, then this and this and this is going to happen. You know, sometimes you need to make the decision and just see what what does happen, and then make another decision and see what happens. So that’s that would be, yeah, I think my advice just to anyone is just take the baby step that allows you to move 1% in the direction that leads you to where you

Kara Goldin 27:57
want to go, definitely. So there’s so many metrics out there and and when somebody’s looking at whether or not a brand is successful, what do you look at to figure out is Seeq actually doing it. Are they successful? Are we headed in the right direction? What is that, I guess, north star that you look at that to evaluate these metrics?

Hannah Perez 28:24
Yeah, I think there’s two points of view. I think there’s the tangible and intangible. I think the tangible is the the numbers, you know, especially as you’re in retail, it’s velocity. Are you moving the velocity that they need you to move to stay on shelf? That’s ultimately very important. You know, what is our just overall revenue, quarter to quarter? And are we scaling every single year? Those are great metrics to follow. What’s our CAC? You know, how much are we acquiring a customer for? But I think for me, and what I really lean into, and I really felt this deeply last week when I was at a networking event with the CPG world and investors, and to me, it’s that intangible of who is everyone talking about in the space, what is the conversation around the category, and are you being brought up in that? And I think that is the intangible value. Is that brand equity you hold in people’s minds. And when they think of clear protein, they think of Seeq so last week, when I was at this networking event, I’m, you know, being approached by so many people saying, you’ve created this category. We’ve we’ve built a brand similar in the way of clear protein, because we saw the success of what you were building, which ultimately, I think just gives me a lot of excitement, and a lot of it’s just reassuring to see that, you know, a category that we bet on. Because when we launched our business, there was really only one other player in the game, when we launched here in the US, and we believed, you know, this was going to be a category here to stay. And now, like I said earlier, there’s dozens of clear protein. Brands that have come out in the last four years because of the tailwinds of our success. And I think that intangible value and intangible metric is the most important one, definitely.

Kara Goldin 30:12
So Hannah, thank you so much for joining us. You have built such a great, great brand and company. I’m so excited for you. I know you’re still in in the early days, being going on four years, but definitely have just done it, I think, right? And I love, love, love everything that you’re doing thus far. And for everyone listening, visit Seeq supply.com and you’ll also see it in many retail opportunities as well. But don’t forget to share this episode and give Hannah some love and until next time on the Kara Goldin show. Thanks again, Hannah.

Hannah Perez 30:56
Thank you so much for having me.

Kara Goldin 30:58
Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show, if you would please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit. And of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms. At Kara Goldin, I would love to hear from you too, so feel free to DM me, and if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book, undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building. Hint we are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening, and goodbye for now.

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