We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Carime Muvdi a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Carime , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?
2GO! Organic Snacks came from the idea of providing healthy snacks to children and adults. Our dehydrated fruit do not have sugar or preservatives added. Also, I wanted to emphasize the importance of sustainable development within the communities who grow, process and package the fruits in Colombia. When fruits are dehydrated; the shelf life becomes 365 days, so the farmers can sell all of their production and export it. Fru2GO! is a Fair Trade certified company.
I started by getting the 2GO! trademark and selling by visiting convenience stores and healthy food stores. I was the sales person, the shipper, the bookkeeper, the driver, the promoter, etc. Thanks to a friend I was introduced to a distributor who started selling in the Miami and Tampa International airport. When Covid started the stores at the airport were closed so no more business came from the airports. Thanks to Covid all the online wholesale platforms changed the way of distribution. I was contacted by Faire Wholesale at Expo East. Thanks to this platform I started selling in independent stores, colleges, coffee shops, hotels, etc. nationally and then in the UK, Ireland, Italy, Canada and France. After this, many other platforms invited me to join them. At the moment I am selling my products in Panama, Kuwait and the UAE.
I became WBENC certified, Women’s business owned certified and that opened my doors to join UNFI Common Market Place online distributors and KeHE the largest organic products logistic distributors.
I do 70.3 Ironman and sometimes I thought it was easier to do an Ironman than fill all the requisites to join distributors or do paper work. Sometimes I even asked myself what did I get into. The other problem is that the big companies take advantage of the small businesses.
Now I feel things have become easier, even though every day there is something new to learn. My plans for this year are to start selling to chain grocery stores and get a broker to increase sales.
My advice is not to be afraid to follow your dreams. It is not easy, but persistence and consistency is the trick. Be patient, grow organically, exhibit at expos, and be cautious with your budget.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?
I studied Business Management and worked as a Distributor for Danskin in Colombia, I also worked as a Commercial realtor and Financial Advisor in the US. I taught aerobics and worked as a personal trainer for 15 years. I went back to school and studied to become a Health Coach and also a Raw Vegan Chef. After visiting India, I decided to write a book HOW TO LOOK AND FEEL FABULOUS AFTER 50 which was then launched in Spanish by Editorial Planeta “MEJOR QUE NUNCA” In my book I give advice and motivation on how to eat to be healthy and active at any age.
I started experimenting with my dehydrator preparing dried fruits and granolas. This motivated me to launch 2GO! Organic Snacks.
What I am most proud of are my two wonderful sons, Kerim and Kamal. Also, becoming a member of the US Team and represent the US in Denmark at long Distance World Championship, last year third place at Abu Dhabi triathlon World Championship in my age category and finishing 3 70.3 Ironman.
What makes me happy is to be able to motivate people to achieve their goals when they consult me as a Health Coach. Also, I feel proud to have been able to launch a business that is Fair Trade (helps the local farmers in Colombia) and provides healthy organic snacks with no added sugars or preservatives.
We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.
Thanks to COVID the distribution business changed completely. Regular distribution channels even switched to online distributions. Platforms such as Faire Wholesale, UNFI Common Marketplace, Mable, SFP are great because they advertise a lot, they guaranteed payment to the supplier, if you get the client, they do not charge you a commission, they give the client 60 days payment terms and besides, some of them sell overseas. You have to do the drop shipping so you manage your own inventory. We also work with SnackMagic which is an online snack gift box. This platform has allowed me to see in which states I sell the most. We also sell in Amazon retail, but 2GO! main business is wholesale.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
The most important thing to teach your children from an early age is to save money every month. That is what I did and with my savings I started the business. I am very conservative so I have grown organically.
My plans are to keep growing. I have a line of credit approved which I have not used yet. If I need to have more capital, I would use the line of credit or get investors with capital and experience in the snacks industry that would make 2GO! Organic Snacks a household name.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://2goorganic.com/
- Instagram: @2goorganic
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carime-muvdi-07b9564/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEX_B5KX7rc