We recently connected with Nadine Calderon and have shared our conversation below.

Nadine, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My Name is Nadine Calderon, I am the Co-founder of Revol Snax. I am obsessed with positively impacting the world and those around me. I am passionate about nutrition and strongly believe that food is medicine.
My first entrepreneurial memory is at age 8 when I opened a hair salon in my school’s playground under a tree. My dad is an entrepreneur too so I guess it runs in my blood!
I have tried many ideas in the past and have learned so many valuable lessons along the way, from starting a jewelry business to what today is my greatest pride and passion: Revol Snax.

Revol Snax is a Revolutionary way to snack! We recreate nostalgic treats with zero sugar and fresh ingredients (find us in the fridge!) so you don’t have to compromise on nutrition for flavor. They are grain-free, dairy-free, and sugar-free. Our main product is a line of 5 flavors of protein Bites — think if a cookie and a truffle had a baby.

Within a few years of launching our business, we’d grown from a profitable, bootstrapped brand with 2 full-time employees and a Co-founding team of two to a very successful Kickstarter launch of more than $50K and partnerships with Whole Foods, Erewhon, Edible Arrangements, and more.

While building my brand I realized the importance of communicating your product to the world with the right branding. But as a bootstrapped CPG brand getting access to high-quality freelancers or agencies was unthinkable. So I set up a service to bridge that gap and now offer affordable branding for emerging CPG brands in the DC-area in partnership with designers in Colombia, where I am originally from.

After 4 years of building a brand, my best advice for those who are contemplating launching their own business is to focus on service and to do it in your own authentic way. The world needs more businesses that dare to challenge the Status Quo, and that have a mission bigger than profit.

Alright, Nadine thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

In 2018 after moving to the USA, I witnessed how my father’s health declined due to his diabetes and poor eating habits, alongside the health of my father-in-law and close relatives. My husband and I embarked on a journey to better our own health in hope of avoiding repeating our family’s health patterns. Having a sweet tooth, we started experimenting with cooking and baking without any sugar while keeping the flavors and decadence of our favorite desserts, which eventually led us to launch Revol Snax.

Through this experience we got to also help our fathers improve their health, my dad lost 25 lbs in 4 months and managed to get off his insulin naturally! I am super proud of him and witnessing his transformation made me a big believer that food IS medicine.

Revol Snax is an outlet to explore our creativity, sustainability, and the mutual interest we both have in food, health, and wellness. But is also a vehicle to positively impact the lives of many people, like our fathers, and help them improve their health.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Building our audience has taken many years and it has been a slow but exciting process. We tried to keep it as organic as possible, meaning we don’t buy followers. We also don’t focus so much on the number of followers but rather on engagement rate and making the most of those who are already part of our community.

Collaboration with other brands and influencers brings exposure to the brand which helps in terms of numbers. But I think engaging with your followers, even if it’s a small following, is actually more powerful and meaningful. Highlight your customer success stories, show your own journey as an entrepreneur, and the ups and downs so people relate to you as a person because at the end of the day people want to follow and support people, not brands!

We should always keep in mind that we as brands exist to serve our customers and not the opposite.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

So many! Books for Entrepreneurs and creatives:

Contagious by Jonah Berger
Let my people go surfing by Yvon Chouinard
The war of art by Steven Pressfield
Zero to one by Peter Thiel

Contact Info:

• Website: www.revolsnax.com
• Instagram: @revolsnax
• Facebook: Revol Snax
• Linkedin: Nadine Calderon
• Youtube: Revol Snax