352 | Turning Feedback Into a Founder’s Superpower | with Kirsten Maitland

Kirsten Maitland is the co-founder of Rebel Cheese, an award-winning Austin-based vegan cheese brand backed by Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban. A former U.S. Navy veteran and Microsoft agile coach, Kirsten brings her background in tech innovation to reimagine plant-based dairy through traditional cheesemaking techniques and smart Ecommerce strategy.

After leaving a stable four-day tech career to pursue purpose over comfort, Kirsten built Rebel Cheese from a six-bottle wine fridge experiment into a nationally recognized brand featured by The New York Times. From launching DTC overnight during COVID to scaling through broken shipments and real-time customer feedback, her journey reveals what it takes to grow authentically while staying true to your values.

Whether you’re building a mission-driven CPG company or refining your feedback loop before scaling, Kirsten shares a masterclass in transforming curiosity and conviction into sustainable growth.

In This Conversation We Discuss:

• [00:03] Intro
• [00:55] Bringing tradition into modern food innovation
• [01:30] Turning passion for food into a scalable concept
• [02:34] Validating a product through emotional connection
• [03:33] Turning crisis into new growth channels
• [04:44] Fixing packaging with help from early partners
• [06:03] Shipping curated boxes to customers’ doors
• [07:00] Selling out with zero ads or paid marketing
• [08:00] Turning online orders into lasting connections
• [08:58] Delaying advertising to protect cash flow
• [10:21] Stay updated with new episodes
• [10:31] Learning to sustain momentum after viral moments
• [12:24] Studying investor dynamics before pitching
• [12:53] Episode Sponsors: Electric Eye & Heatmap
• [15:32] Launching fast to gather real customer feedback
• [18:01] Leveraging AI agents to save time and money

Resources:

• Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube
• Plant-based cheese you'll actually love rebelcheese.com/ 
• Follow Kirsten Maitland linkedin.com/in/kirstenmaitland 
• Schedule an intro call with one of our experts electriceye.io/connect
• Clear, real-time data built for ecommerce optimization heatmap.com/honest 

If you’re enjoying the show, we’d love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

Transcript

Chase Clymer

Shark Tank happened. Now, did you submit for Shark Tank or did they reach out to you? 

Kirsten Maitland 

So, yeah, we just kind of went through the motions and aired a year and half ago. And of course, that was another boost for us. It's great and we're super great for it. But you have to not only deliver, right? Make sure you execute well on that boost because you don't want to mess it up because then you lose that opportunity. But you also need to plan on ways to maintain that boost. So there isn't a big drop.

Chase Clymer

Honest Ecommerce is a weekly podcast where we interview direct-to-consumer brand founders and leaders to find out what it takes to start, grow, and scale an online business today.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Honest Ecommerce. Today we're joined by Kirsten Maitland, a US Navy veteran turned Microsoft agile coach who leveraged her tech innovation experience to co-found Rebel Cheese. Kirsten, welcome to the show. Thank you. 

Kirsten Maitland 

Thanks for having me. 

Chase Clymer

I'm excited to chat, know a few things about your story. Definitely looking to learn more. Now, for those that are unaware of Rebel Cheese, what types of products are you guys making over there? 

Kirsten Maitland 

Yes, we make plant-based artisanal vegan cheeses. I guess it's the same thing there.  What makes us different is they're truly gourmet. So you can serve them on a charcuterie board, pair them with a glass of wine. Some of our cheeses take several weeks to make such as our cave-aged brie, which is truly what sets us apart. 

Chase Clymer

Yeah. And that's amazing. Now take me back in time.  Where did the idea for this business come from? 

Kirsten Maitland 

Yes. Over a decade ago, my husband and I decided to give up dairy overnight.  And we loved cheese. We would eat it with every single meal. We love to have picnics and date nights and gatherings around cheeseboards.

So when we decided to give it up, we honestly were a little bit terrified. We were like, what are we going to do? What are we going to eat? And we started shopping around and we just could not find anything artisanal. It was either slices, spreads, shreds. You can't put that on a cheese board and you definitely can't serve that with wine. So we started experimenting in our kitchen and we're blown away by the results.

And that's when Marble Cheese was born. So we wanted to make this product accessible to many people and decided to open a brick and mortar. 

Chase Clymer

That's amazing. So after experimenting and coming up, was there a single flagship product or did you have a couple of cheeses at the start? 

Kirsten Maitland 

Yes. I knew we were on to something when we came up with our first iteration of our cave-aged brie. And I actually still have the little tiny wine fridge that we use to create that recipe. It's like a six bottle fridge. And that's where we aged our first iterations of that brie. And what makes it so special is that it has the same rind as a dairy brie. It comes from that cave aging process and the cultures. And I grew up in England. So I grew up around, you know, aged cheeses and really miss that.

So when I took a bite of our first iteration of our plant-based brie, I was just taken back to my childhood and French brie. And I knew we had something and we needed to pursue this and  sell it at scale. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. And I can't wait to get to that part of the story. But we got to start at the beginning. So you have this product and you say you launched with a brick and mortar first. How was that experience? How was going to market at the start?

Kirsten Maitland 

It was interesting. It's such a unique concept. We were actually the first vegan wine and cheese deli in the world. There have been other delis, but not the full concept. So we actually weren't sure how it was going to go. So we started really small, you know, to be safe. And when we opened their doors, there was actually a line down the street. So I was like, “Oh, good. Okay, this is going to work because we had no idea how this would do.” 

Unfortunately, a few months later, COVID hit. All the other small businesses at the time, we started pivoting and doing things we never planned to do like selling our cheese, direct to business and direct to consumer. We never thought we would shift this product. So we just dove in and started experimenting with those ideas. And now those are the biggest segments of our business. 

Chase Clymer

That's amazing. Now, obviously, the name of the show is Honest Ecommerce. So I want to chat a little bit about that experience of like, “Okay, we're going to ship cheeses to people. Let's do that.” How did you attempt to crack the code of finding your customers out there in the ether? I don't want to guess on anything. 

Kirsten Maitland 

Yes. When we first opened our bistro, people started reaching out to us and asking us to ship our cheeses to their businesses for resale. And we told them, “No, we're too busy. We don't know how to ship this and we want to focus on the restaurant.” But then like I mentioned, when COVID hit, we started calling them back. And we were like, “Hey, about that wholesale that you wanted to do, let's figure this out.” It was actually fantastic because they were able to help us work through all the kinks when we shipped out our first iterations. 

We had blue tape on the cheese and on the boxes and packages would show up melted and wet. And so they were able to help guide us through that process and refine it and get it to a point where we were really confident in our shipment.

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. So the first subset of customers when you started to go online because you had to during COVID was actually a little more B2B, you were shipping wholesale orders to other restaurants and distributors? 

Kirsten Maitland 

Yeah, it was all B2B to begin with. And then we spent probably about 6 months refining that process. And we knew it wasn't going to be enough to survive COVID. So then we came up with the idea to launch our cheese club. And that's where Ecommerce came in. Everybody was at home, ordering packages online. 

So it just made sense to ship a curated box to people's doors. And since we had been practicing people with our B2B customers, we felt really confident about opening this up to a wider base. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. And now, did you have a website? Were you trying to just sell single cheeses on the internet before this?  

Kirsten Maitland 

No, we did not have a website. So this was all brand new. To begin, we just started with one box and you couldn't pick what was in that box. We picked it for them. And I remember very well when we launched, we received 66 orders and it felt so huge to us and we're all back there packing them and we loaded them into our van.

We call it the cheese wagon and it was full to the brim. And it was also so exciting. It felt like such a big deal. And yeah, so that's how we started. And we didn't do any advertising. These were all existing customers that had been to our restaurant and had either moved away or just wanted to get their cheese to their door. 

Chase Clymer

And you had. Just assuming, you had the foresight to collect their email or phone number when they visited? 

Kirsten Maitland 

No, actually. That was actually something that. A little side benefit, if you will, from COVID because everyone was ordering online. And that's another thing too. When we opened a restaurant, we didn't even have online sales for a restaurant. 

So when COVID hit, I spent two nights getting a webpage up and running where they can just order from a restaurant online. And that's how we collected their email addresses through that process and started building our newsletter list. And then we did have a following on Instagram and Facebook, those usual places that we were able to find people to. So we would post there, announce it there. And some of the customers came from those channels also.

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. That's amazing. So you launched your cheese club and you get these 66 orders. Do you just double down on it? Do you start investing in ads? How does it grow to now? You've got over 5,000 reviews on this website. What happened?  

Kirsten Maitland 

Yeah, that's a great question. We were always very hesitant with ads because of the cost.  We're very bootstrapped. We did everything ourselves. We didn't have an investor until Shark Tank a year and a half ago.

You know ads made us nervous because it's such a costly endeavor. We're like, well, they work, you know, so we didn't actually start doing ads until about a year ago. So it was a slow process of slowly building up that cheese club. But we did also have some group grassroots things that happened. The New York Times featured us and the first time they told us.

The second time they didn't tell us that they included us on their Christmas list. And out of nowhere, all of these orders started coming in. Like, “What is happening? Can we accommodate all these? We want to get these, but we have space.” So that really boosted our cheese club when that happened. It was super helpful because it grew our email list, it grew our base. And that was completely grassroots.

Chase Clymer

Hey everybody, just a quick reminder. Please like this video and subscribe if you haven't. We're releasing interviews like this every week, so don't miss out. Now back to the interview.

Well, it just goes to the cheat sheet to a winning business to have a great product and in your case, have a delicious product that serves a very specific need and the customers want it. So that's the number one tip for everyone out there. Just have a good product. So you're starting to use these press features. And then now, you mentioned it a little bit. But then Shark Tank happened. Now, did you submit for Shark Tank or did they reach out to you? 

Kirsten Maitland 

We did submit. We were trying everything during COVID. We're applying to any grant we can find. oh Competitions, you name it. And oh we applied a couple of times and they reached out. And from the beginning, they told us right until we aired.

“You may not air, you may not make it.” That's what they're telling you throughout this whole process. There's no guarantees. So yeah, we just kind of went through the motions and aired a year and a half ago. 

And of course, that was another boost for us. But it's great and we're super grateful for it. But you have to not only deliver, make sure you execute well on that boost. Because you don't want to mess it up because then you lose that opportunity. But you also need to plan on ways to maintain that boost so there isn't a big drop. 

We kind of experienced that a little bit with the New York Times and we learned a lot from that experience and we applied those learnings to our Shark Tank experience. And that's when we started investing more in  ads, email follow-ups and things like that. We didn't do any of that with the New York Times. 

So I had this boost that was great. And then it slowly started dissipating. And then we're like, “Oh, no. Now what?”

Chase Clymer

Now, and then you mentioned it earlier, you struck a deal with Mark Cuban. And everyone should go watch that episode of Shark Tank. This is completely aside. My favorite thing about traveling for work is. Tank is always on at the hotels.

Kirsten Maitland 

Yes. I love that too. And on the airplane too. I watched  so many episodes when I was preparing, but I'm not bored of it. I still enjoy watching it. 

Chase Clymer

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If you were to go back in time and you were going to do this or just do something similar, you're just going to build again, build a brand from scratch tomorrow, what would be the three things you'd focus on? 

Kirsten Maitland 

Yes. Number one, passion is so important. That's why we started this. Before we started Rebel Cheese, I was a consultant in tech. I had a very successful career, working four days a week. I had every weekend off.

And I walked away from that to start this because I just had this big void and this strong urge to do something that better aligns with my values. And I'm really glad that that's the approach I took because there's so many ups and downs and the downs that we've experienced for Rebel.  Some of those have been the worst downs I've ever experienced in my life, to be honest.

If I didn't have something like that, why keep me going, if it was just for money or success or just to own a business, there's no way I would have made it out of those pitfalls. There's just no way. So that's number one for me. Number two, that's really important is making sure you get your products out there as quickly as possible so you can gather feedback.

One of the huge advantages of our broken orders is that we sample our products and we can see real-time feedback. So when we launch a new product, we launch it to the store first and kind of watch how our customers react. “Is this worth launching on Ecomm and to our wholesalers and all of that?” So getting that feedback as quickly as possible is so important. 

Number one. It's like you said, you know, it's just a product that people want. If it's not a product they want, it's not worth spending months or, you know, tons of money. So get it out there, get it out there as quickly as possible. And then once you start gathering that feedback, be sure to act on it, right? Don't just gather it and then sit on it, learn from it, implement, you know, your learnings and constantly be doing that. Always be iterating and repeating that cycle. 

Chase Clymer

Now, Kirsten, you shared a lot with us today. Is there anything I didn't ask you about that you think would resonate with our audience?  

Kirsten Maitland 

That's a great question. One thing that I've been focused on that's been really helpful for us here at Rebel Cheese, AI is a really hot topic right now. And something I'm very passionate about. And what I've been doing when I run into big challenges. 

For example, one of our shipping partners was charging us way more than we were planning on. I created a tool which monitors our invoices and compares it against our contract to catch any variances to make sure that doesn't happen to us again. So there's so many great ways, innovative ways to address some of these huge business problems now with AI like the agents or even just ask it questions. So that's something I've been heavily focused on that I found really helpful. And it's literally saved us so much money and time. 

Chase Clymer

AI is definitely a tool people need to be  working into their business and just using. My favorite thing I've been doing lately is I'll describe the problem I'm looking to solve to AI and then I say, “Ask me more questions so you get more context to give me a better answer.” And that changes the response from an okay response to an insanely specific and actionable answer. 

Kirsten Maitland 

Yeah. And the great thing is, it doesn't. Those free versions of those tools. So it doesn't cost a ton of money. Whereas 10 years ago, you would have had to hire a coach or a consultant to help you work through those issues, right? 

Chase Clymer

Yeah. 

Kirsten Maitland 

To have a similar scenario. But now these are available to us for free or not much money at all. And they can really help move the needle on some of our big business problems. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. Now, before we go, if I'm listening to this podcast and these vegan cheeses sound delicious to me and I want to try them. Where should I go? What should I do? 

Kirsten Maitland 

That's a great question. Of course, our website, rebelcheese.com.  We have a fine near me to see if it's in a store close to you. We have a brick and mortar in Austin and then we also have one in New York in the Lower East Side, if you're in those areas. And yeah, we ship right to your door. So if there isn't a location near you,  you can just order online and it will show up right at your doorstep a couple days later. 

Chase Clymer

That's amazing. Kirsten, thank you so much for coming on the show today. 

Kirsten Maitland 

Thank you.