Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to A Kouture. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, A thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start on the operational side – do you spend more of your time/focus/energy on growing revenue or cutting costs?

As the founder of Fully Charged Snacks, I’m proud to say we’re on track to cross a significant personal revenue milestone next year. But getting to this point didn’t come from playing it safe or focusing solely on cost-cutting. The biggest lesson I’ve learned over the past four years is that even as a micro startup, growth and sustainability must be like a marriage, and in that partnership, revenue growth has to be the lead partner.

First, I built this company for people with food allergies and sensitivities, which is very niche and expensive to launch to begin with. I don’t have the luxury of playing defense all the time. Managing costs is critical, and we run lean. But our mission is rooted in serving an underserved group of people. So that takes reach, visibility, and scale, and none of that can happen without growing revenue.

I need to expand into new stores, innovate new products, hire the right people, and invest in quality, and I need the cash flow coming in to do that in excellence. So I prioritize driving sales, pushing distribution, and connecting with retailers and customers, making sure our business and brand is moving forward. I believe that growing revenue is what funds your freedom and gives you more options. It gives you the flexibility to fix what’s broken, double down in investing in what’s working, and build for the long haul.

But in doing that, I didn’t ignore costs. I just learned early on that cutting costs won’t build the business alone. Cost management is the other partner in the marriage, to ensure the house runs smoothly, while revenue growth or investment, as I like to say, is out there winning the game. If either side tries to run the whole show without the other, things fall apart.

I like to tell other founders you can’t call yourself a CEO if revenue growth is low on your priority list. You can’t be afraid to sell. You can’t sit on your hands waiting for the perfect conditions. You can’t obsess over what the competition is doing or try to mimic their strategies. You also can’t be paralyzed by fear, distracted by trends, or try to appease everyone. It’s all about leading from the front, with boldness, grit, and clear vision.

There was this one time, in particular, when I got spooked.  Costs were rising. Inventory was moving more slowly than expected. We had a new President. Market conditions were uncertain. I started listening to every opinion, every article, every tweet about a downturn. I began watching what others were doing, like cutting locations, freezing hiring, halting R&D, and I thought I should start doing the same. Those other companies were bigger and more profitable than me. If they were making changes, I needed to take heed and do the same. I started pulling back. I hesitated to launch new marketing campaigns. I held off on retailer pitches. I started doing more things myself vs paying people to do what they are best at. I focused more on preserving cash than generating revenue. And it almost cost me everything.

I learned quickly that as a company, I can be small, but I wasn’t built to play small. We were built to serve a passionate, underserved group of customers. And when I pulled back, I wasn’t protecting the company; I was compromising everything we had fought for: the momentum, the brand equity, the mission. What brought me back was simple a conversation with a longtime customer who told me how our snacks changed their confidence and the way they felt about eating again. They could finally enjoy something delicious without fear and can access it any time and anywhere without having to take on the responsibility of making it themselves. That conversation reminded me why I started this business in the first place, and it had nothing to do with hoarding reserves or benchmarking against competitors. It had everything to do with creating joy and safety for people who often feel excluded from food. That was my wake-up call. I got back to selling, pitching, and building the brand again, and we started seeing results fast.

A, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is A. Kouture, and I’m the founder and CEO of Fully Charged Snacks. My background is rooted in retail and hospitality, with a focus on consumer engagement, retail marketing, merchandising, and product development. I’ve always had a passion for exploring experiences that connect with people, whether that’s through what they buy, how they shop, or how they feel when they engage with a product or service.

My path into the food industry began when my baby was diagnosed with celiac disease and multiple severe food allergies/sensitivities. Like most babies, they loved carbs and pastries, but finding something safe, convenient, and actually enjoyable was impossible. My mother, who is also my co-founder, stepped in to help. She started baking snacks from scratch that met my child’s dietary needs. But as a working, single mom trying to juggle it all, I didn’t have the time to bake fresh pastries every day. I just wanted to find safe, grab-and-go snacks for people with food allergies as easily as you could find a bag of potato chips, available anywhere, anytime.

That’s when I realized: there was a major gap in the market. There were plenty of healthy snacks, and plenty of indulgent ones, but very few that were both safe and easy to access outside the grocery store bakery department, especially for people with multiple food allergies.

All our products are free of the Top 14 food allergens, including gluten, dairy, nuts, soy, and more. We’re committed to making snacks that are safe, delicious, and convenient for people with dietary restrictions or food sensitivities. Each item is fresh-baked and shipped out daily, but we’ve engineered a rare achievement in the baking industry: our products are shelf-stable for 60 days, without using artificial preservatives or additives. That’s almost unheard of, especially in the clean-label space. We’ve worked hard to create something that tastes like it came out of your kitchen, but fits into your real-life schedule.

I’m most proud that we’ve built something that’s changing lives. We get messages from parents excited because their child can finally enjoy a treat at school like everyone else. We also get notes from adults who haven’t had a safe pastry in years. What keeps me going is knowing that we’re not just making food, we’re making people feel seen, included, and celebrated. I’m also proud that we’ve achieved our shelf-life goals and freshness without cutting corners. Our snacks are made fresh, shipped fast, and taste homemade. That balance of convenience and care is hard to pull off, and we’ve done it without giving in to the usual shortcuts.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

Our journey into manufacturing started not because we planned to do it that way, but because we had no other choice. We launched during the height of the pandemic, when access to co-packers was extremely limited. Most manufacturers were overwhelmed and backlogged, and new startups like ours weren’t a priority. We were told “no” more times than I can count, because we weren’t producing large volumes yet, and for many co-packers, we simply weren’t profitable enough to work with.

Even if they were willing, most co-packers wanted to alter or reformulate our product to make it easier for them to run at scale. That was a dealbreaker for us. Our products are made specifically for people with food allergies and sensitivities, and we refuse to compromise on safety, freshness, or ingredient integrity just to make the process easier or cheaper. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what many co-packers do—substituting preservatives, changing ingredient suppliers, or using shared lines that risk cross-contamination. We knew we had to be in full control if we wanted to protect the people we created this brand for.

We had zero manufacturing experience when we started. My background is in retail and hospitality, and focused on customer service and sales and my co-founder is my mother, who spent her career in high-energy roles as a hospital nurse and later as a community organizer. But what we lacked in technical knowledge, we made up for in grit, adaptability, and resourcefulness. We were lean, scrappy, and determined to figure it out. If we didn’t know how to do something, we found someone who did. If we didn’t have the tools, we got creative with the ones we had. That mindset helped us build a fully functioning manufacturing operation from the ground up.

One of the biggest lessons we’ve learned is that manufacturing is a whole different business from building a brand. It’s not just about producing something, t’s about systems, consistency, quality control, food safety, regulations, efficiency, and scalability. And it demands a level of focus, time, and financial investment that most people don’t realize when they’re first getting started.

Many new entrepreneurs believe that having a good product and a strong brand is enough, but without proper manufacturing, your entire business can fall apart. You have to balance product development, R&D, supply chain management, and innovation, all while staying up to date with safety protocols, compliance, and customer demand. It’s exhausting, expensive, and at times frustrating, but it’s also deeply rewarding when you see your product go from idea to shelf and know every inch of that process was built with intention.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

There are several lessons I’ve had to unlearn on this journey. But the thread connecting all of them is learning how to let go of old habits, outdated mindsets, and the idea that I have to do it all myself to do it right.

I remember this one time, we were doing everything manually; hand-sealing bags of muffins to mixing batter in a residential-size mixer we’d push to its limit. I’ll never forget one night when we were working a rush order. My child had a rough day and I had just finishing ordering food and put them down to sleep. It was 11:30 PM, and I was still in the kitchen packing bags, printing shipping labels, and trying to answer a wholesale inquiry while my mom cleaned trays in the background. I remember thinking, This can’t be sustainable. Something had to change.

Lesson #1: Time Management Is Not the Same as Work-Life Balance
When I first launched Fully Charged Snacks, I was a mom, a full-time remote employee and had a brand-new business to run. I told myself I needed “better work-life balance” to avoid burnout. But what I really needed was clarity and control over my time. I had to learn how to manage my time like a resource, not an emotion. Time management became about being intentional, protecting blocks of focused work, making hard decisions about what not to do, and understanding that not everything deserves equal attention.

Lesson #2: I Can’t Do Everything Myself
In the early days, we were baking, packaging, labeling, cleaning, managing sales, doing social media, everything. My mother and I were tag-teaming it all, with me squeezing in orders between other meetings and school pickup. At first, I thought that was just what founders were supposed to do: hustle hard, wear every hat, and push through.

But as the business grew, and after I had a medical setback, and my mother had a stroke, I realized that being deeply involved in everything was becoming a liability, not a strength. That was a turning point. I started putting real time, energy, and money into finding the best people to help. People who weren’t just talented, but also believed in our mission.

Lesson #3: The Way I Learned Isn’t the Only Way
I come from a traditional, college-educated background, where structure and theory were heavily emphasized. That served me well in the retail and hospitality world, but once I entered food manufacturing and entrepreneurship, I quickly realized that the real world moves faster than any textbook ever could. I had to unlearn a lot of “old school” methods and embrace new systems, technologies, and workflows. Today, innovation is baked into how we work, whether it’s testing production techniques, packaging upgrades, or digital tools to streamline operations.

Lesson #4: I Don’t Have to Carry It All
I’m a hyper-independent founder, raised to figure things out, fix problems, and take care of others without complaint. And in the beginning, that trait helped us survive. But eventually, I started to crack under the weight of trying to be everywhere at once, the visionary in the front and the safety net in the back. I had to unlearn the belief that carrying it all made me strong. The success and sustainability of my company don’t rest in how much I can endure, but well I can build a team, trust people, and create a culture where everyone can thrive. Letting others in, whether to manage operations, offer support, or just remind me to laugh. It’s a daily reminder that the journey matters just as much as the goal, and we’re not meant to walk it alone.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://fullychargedsnacks.com
• Instagram: @fullychargedsnacks or @alenisekouture
• Facebook: @fullychargedsnacks or @alenisekouture
• Linkedin: @fullychargedsnacks or @alenisekouture
• Twitter: @fullychargedsnacks or @alenisekouture