🍪 The newest Girl Scout Cookie

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👋 Another week awaits. Here’s hoping it only figuratively resembles the stunt pulled by Slovenia’s Filip Kržišnik, just awarded a Guinness World Record for the longest-ever full body burn handstand. He got up on his hands, was lit fully on fire, and endured the flames for 47 seconds. If anything on your calendar today makes you seriously consider trading places with Filip, cancel it. Cancel it now.

NEWS FLASH

🐶 In case your dog isn’t pretentious enough…: British dog food startup Omni has them covered with its new line of functional plant-based foods that promise not only joint and skin benefits, but somehow also inner peace. Omni says its protein-packed vegan blends additionally save the environment, generating 73% fewer emissions than standard dog food. Their next product in the works will also induce groans: LeanPaws, an Ozempic-inspired weight-loss supplement for dogs.

🤖 Well, that’s one way to do it: Robot maker Figure wanted to junk a battalion of old humanoid bots. It also wanted to keep its IP out of competitors’ hands. So its next move was obvious: ship the robots off to a foundry in Finland, train them to jump into a vat of molten steel, and play up the whole thing with an unsettling video featuring an Arnold Schwarzenegger cameo. Now Figure’s selling remnant metal bars as souvenirs for as much as $1.9k and people are actually buying them for some reason.

🌈 No longer just a dating app: Leading LGBTQ social app Grindr is deepening its roots in… healthcare? The company agreed to a $250m acquisition of HIV-prevention startup Freddie. It will join the app’s self-grown telehealth and pharmacy business Woodwork under the Grindr Health banner and keeps the company’s momentum rolling — Grindr is rare in the dating app world in that it’s growing in both users and revenue.

MORE NEWS TO KNOW

Slowing down or speeding up?: Anthropic is charging ahead with its IPO plans, reportedly expected before Thanksgiving. You’d go fast too if you stood to gain from an anticipated $2T valuation.
A fitting reminder: ChatGPT now has a virtual try-on feature, allowing users to transpose clothes onto any uploaded photo. Sounds great, but be careful — OpenAI can train its models on any images added to ChatGPT, unless the default setting is changed.
Comeback sauce: Down-on-its-luck chain TGI Fridays signed its first franchise agreement in the US in over a decade. Over that span, 80% of its domestic locations have closed. But the new deal calls for five openings, all in New York.
Hard to believe this didn’t exist yet: It’s safe to assume Pokemon will cash in big next Valentine’s Day, as the card-collection giant will release its first-ever booster packs themed to the holiday and meant to be exchanged among classmates.

BYE BYE, BUSYWORK

Your CRM should already know

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Workflows: Repetitive tasks automated — no code required.

It's not the CRM you have to manage. It's the one that may just manage itself.

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THE BIG IDEA

How the founder behind the latest Girl Scout Cookie jolted an industry

A tough day definitely deserves a cookie. But for one founder, a cookie was only the beginning of a tough journey — one that ultimately led to more cookies for more people.

Denise Woodward's road to success began in the back of her SUV, where she launched Partake Foods. She's since overcome funding challenges, landing her products in over 11k+ stores and partnered with the Girl Scouts to offer an allergy-friendly vegan cookie, per Inc.

Inspiration at home

After her daughter Vivienne was diagnosed with food allergies, Woodward was inspired to fill a void of delicious, allergen-friendly snacks. She launched the company in the wee hours before her corporate gig at Coca-Cola.

Woodward hustled cookies out of her SUV around NYC in 2016, bootstrapping Partake, before quitting her job.

Funding became an obstacle as Woodward was rejected — 86 times — for ever-shifting reasons. Until the first big yes came from Jay-Z co-founded Marcy Venture Partners.

First Black founder to raise $1m for a consumer packaged goods (CPG) food brand.
$4.8m Series A funding included Rihanna and H.E.R.
$30m+ raised to date
Certified B Corporation in 2023.
Now carried nationwide, including Whole Foods, Target, Walmart, and Kroger.
Partnered with major brands — Ben & Jerry's, DoubleTree, and American Airlines — and non-profits.

Partake Foods includes a lineup of flavors from chocolate chip to snickerdoodle, plus mini cookies. All are free from the top nine allergens: peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, wheat, milk, soy, fish, shellfish, and sesame.

Partake's inclusivity extends beyond cookies

As a Black Korean-American woman, Woodward has also inspired other women of color to launch businesses and built an investor base that is predominantly people of color and a board that is 80% women of color.

People of color hold just 16% of CPG leadership positions and make up 23% of business founders.
Women and other historically marginalized people make up 35% of board members in the consumer staples (food) industry.

Most recently, Partake partnered with the Girl Scouts to launch Sparkables, the non-profit's first cookie free of the top nine allergens, which will be available beginning in January 2027.

Now, more of us can enjoy a delicious cookie, thanks to Woodward's dogged determination. (TBH, I plan to enjoy more than one.)

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HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Don’t feel blue: Your city is probably spending millions on new streetlights again, but there’s a good reason why.

NEWSWORTHY NUMBER

Share of Americans who’ve gone on a “foodie call” date — when you agree to a date with someone you have no romantic interest in, simply for the free food or drinks — according to a recent DatingAdvice.com survey of 1k+ US adults. Before you start judging the young adults in your life, know that the trend is cross-generational: While Gen Zers and zillennials reported the highest rate of foodie calls (32%), boomers weren’t far behind at 26%.

With restaurant prices up 3.5% YoY in May and continuing to climb, how else are we — I mean, they! — supposed to dine out in this economy?

AROUND THE WEB

📅 On this day: In 1947, President Harry Truman delivered the first-ever televised presidential address. It may not surprise you to learn it was not the last-ever.

📺 That’s funny: An inside look at the making of the “Seinfeld” finale.

⛔ Perfection: To win this game, all you have to do is cancel one subscription.

🎨 That’s interesting: How an art forger became a national hero in the Netherlands.

🐇 Aww: Salad for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

SHOWER THOUGHT

We all hate the fact that cockroaches are so good at hiding, but would you really prefer them to be brazen and walk around your house like they own the place? SOURCE

Today's email was brought to you by Ben Berkley, Singdhi Sokpo, and Danny Jensen.

Editing by: Sara "One smart cookie" Friedman.

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