an interview with Elizabeth Stein, Founder & CEO of Purely Elizabeth

How homemade muffins turned into a $200M granola empire

Welcome to the first of many interviews on Over & Out where I sit down with founders, creatives, and people building really cool things… and ask them the stuff I actually want to know.

I couldn’t think of a better first guest than Elizabeth Stein, the Founder and CEO of Purely Elizabeth. Not only have I been a longtime fan (and consumer – her granola has basically lived in my pantry for the past decade), but Liz is also a friend. So this conversation felt like the perfect full-circle moment to kick things off.

In this interview, we talk about how she built a $200M brand without a business plan, how intuition and customer feedback have guided nearly every product decision, and why going slow might actually be the best way to grow.

Watch the full interview video below —

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Before Purely Elizabeth was the #1 granola brand in the country, Elizabeth Stein wasn’t dreaming about dominating the grocery aisle. She wasn’t raising capital, pitching VCs, or charting out an exit strategy. She wasn’t even planning on launching a food brand. Her entry into the CPG world was sort of an accident.

“I certainly didn't think, oh, I want to build this to grow it into this massive brand and sell it. So therefore there wasn't that rush to raise the money and do all the things… There were so many things from that perspective that I was just like, I'm making a great product that's gonna help people eat healthier. That was the progress.”

One weekend she showed up to a triathlon with a batch of homemade muffins, attempting to strike up conversation with potential clients for her nutrition practice, and left with a new career path.

Her journey didn’t follow the typical founder arc. No early outside funding, no business plan, no viral launch moment. Just a clear, steady vision: help people eat better and feel better. That intention, more than anything, is what built the brand — and it’s what’s kept it grounded through sixteen years of growth.

The original wellness girlie.

Before she was the granola queen, Elizabeth was knee-deep in gut health and decoding nutrition labels. She’d gone back to school to become a certified nutritionist and was meeting with clients one-on-one—helping them eat better, feel better, and cut through the wellness noise.

But the more she coached, the more obvious the gap became. The superfoods she swore by were either impossible to find, annoying to prep, or, let’s be honest… kind of gross. There was nothing convenient. Nothing crave-able. Purely Elizabeth didn’t exist yet, but the seed had been planted.

One weekend, she set up shop at a local triathlon to drum up nutrition clients. Her lure? A tray of homemade blueberry muffins — because “let’s chat gut health” isn’t exactly a crowd-stopper (her words, not mine).

The muffins on the other hand: a huge hit. Way more of a hit than the wellness pitch. People kept asking about them, and one thing led to another…

Give the people what they want.

Elizabeth let her customers write the playbook. A year after that first triathlon, she went back with boxed muffin mixes (plus a website to buy them online). She sold out on the spot — then landed a Daily Candy feature (for those of you too young to remember this publication — see here) that pulled in 10,000 online orders in just a few hours.

Keep in mind, this was 2009. I don’t know how much you remember about shopping in 2009 but not a lot of it was happening online, especially not in the food industry. “Direct-to-consumer” wasn’t a thing, Amazon Prime Pantry didn’t exist, and buying muffin mix on the internet felt borderline futuristic.

“There was no food DTC. There was no food on Amazon. So the fact that people were willing to buy a muffin mix online was pretty revolutionary.”

One day, just playing around in the kitchen, she whipped up a granola — not because she was a granola girl herself, but out of sheer curiosity. Her mom, a granola super-fan, happened to be visiting and took one bite straight from the oven: “This is better than anything I’ve ever had. This needs to be your next product.”

And just like that, another seed was planted.

Bootstrapped, scrappy, and crystal clear

For the first five years, Elizabeth bootstrapped the business. No outside funding. Just her, a tiny crew, and a crystal clear vision. And every customer was treated like a co-creator, not just a buyer. This strategy led to her the clear path forward: granola.

“I was doing a lot of demos at the time in New York where I was living,” she said. “I'd go to all the local stores and demo, and the feedback from consumers was like, these [muffin mixes] are great, but I hardly bake. And so to have something that people could just eat right away and buy with greater frequency, it was very clear that the velocity of returns on a granola would be much stronger than on a baking mix.”

She wasn’t precious about her original concept. The muffin mix had its moment, but the granola had momentum. So she followed the energy and didn’t look back.

Charting her own course, and paving the way

Here’s what makes Elizabeth’s story so refreshing: she never chased growth for growth’s sake. She didn’t rush. She didn’t scale to impress anyone. She followed her gut.

Sixteen years later, Purely Elizabeth is based in Boulder – where she always dreamed of living – with a team of over 50 employees and a national footprint. They've held the top spot in the natural granola category for more than a decade.

Of course, some of that success rides the wave of a broader shift – consumers becoming more aware, more ingredient-conscious, more invested in gut health. Elizabeth pointed that out when we spoke:

“...now to be number one in all of grocery and all of conventional retailers is such a testament to the shift in consumer desires for healthier food. I never could have imagined consumers would be wanting and willing to pay more for better for you ingredients.”

But I’d argue there’s something deeper at play — because without brands like hers lighting the path, there’d be no wave to ride.

She didn’t just meet the moment, she paved the way.

Her “off the record” advice

“You have to be willing to make a lot of sacrifices,” she said.

“I was missing birthdays… or I’d be there but not really present, because I was thinking about the thousand things on my to-do list. In the beginning, when it’s just you, there’s no balance. You need to be all in.”

I appreciated how real she was about all of this. It’s not the kind of stuff people say on panels. But it’s the truth. Building something from scratch is intense. And the early days rarely look balanced from the outside.

That said – she’s quick to remind founders that help does come.

“In order to show up as your best self, you do need to take downtime. The luxury of being able to bring on your first couple hires starts to allow that so you can have a moment of pause and, and get in whatever it is that you need to do to feel your best.”

Huge thanks to Elizabeth for sharing her story this week! Be sure to follow her journey on Instagram. x

Over & out,
—ari

PS — if you want to connect, need intros, or just general startup advice: you can book time with me here!