This episode is brought to you by Sendlane.   The Vegan Knife offers vegan, allergy-friendly baking mixes designed to taste just like the cakes and cupcakes you originally remember, says Julie Butcher, Founder and Owner.   The company's baking products also are easy to use: No mixer is required - just three ingredients and a whisk or spatula.   The Vegan Knife got its start at a farmer's market in Florida, where Julie would sell the completed baked goods. Demand from tourists, who wanted to make the same products back home, led to the creation of the mixes.   In Part 1, Julie talks about:   * The impact of being one of 10 winners of The Stacy's Rise Project. * How her health problems led to a diagnosis that she couldn't tolerate gluten, dairy, or shellfish. * The struggle to find food she could still eat led her to create her recipes. * How the company started selling baked goods at a local farmer's market, where demand from tourists led her to create mixes. * Her mission is to make her mixes "all-inclusive" in terms of allergies, dairy, and gluten.   Join Ramon Vela and Julie Butcher as they break down the inside story on The Story of a Brand.   For more on The Vegan Knife, visit: https://theveganknife.com/    Subscribe and Listen to the podcast on all major apps. Simply search for “The Story of a Brand,” or click here to listen on your favorite podcast player: Listen now.   *   This episode is also brought to you by Sendlane.   If all DTC companies were forced to turn off Facebook ads, they'd be dead on arrival. Why is that?   They over-invest in paid acquisition and under-invest in retention.   Luckily, Sendlane makes it easy to solve this problem. Sendlane is an E-Commerce Customer Experience Platform helping hundreds of DTC brands to tighten their existing customer relationships.   Sendlane automates personalized customer experiences through Welcome and Abandoned Cart workflows, SMS, Deep Data Integrations with Shopify and WooCommerce, multi-store functionality, and much more.   Plus, they don't stand for lazy customer support. Their San-Diego-based team has an average 1-minute response time from a live human, making sure you never get stuck in a chat queue ever again.   Curious about how Sendlane can help your DTC brand grow? Schedule a demo with a Specialist. Visit https://www.sendlane.com/story