Oddball's Path From Idea to Funding a Nationwide Target Launch
About this episode
Sophia Cheng shares her unconventional journey from corporate roles to founding Oddball, a brand reimagining nostalgic fruit snacks, and discusses the challenges of fundraising as a minority woman founder.
In this episode of the Startup CPG Podcast, host Hannah Dittman sits down with Sophia Cheng, Founder and CEO of Oddball, for a Founder Fundraising Journey conversation. Oddball is reimagining snacking for a new generation with jiggly, nostalgic fruit cups made from real fruit juices and purees — no artificial flavors or colors — inspired by the fruit-based snacks Sophia grew up with in Singapore. The brand is currently sold exclusively at Target and Target.com, with a nationwide expansion and new SKU launching just four months after its initial rollout. Sophia's path to founder was anything but conventional: from management consulting to Bridgewater Associates under Ray Dalio, to a strategy director role at Estée Lauder, where she watched indie beauty brands reshape an entire industry before eventually building Oddball on the side — testing benchtop formulations at farmers markets and pitch competitions before ever raising a dollar. Hannah and Sophia get candid about what it actually takes to fundraise as a first-time, minority woman founder in CPG: the mental shift from "convincing" to "aligning," why the hardest round is always the first, and how to build investor relationships…
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