276 - Building Brazi Bites with Junea Rocha

Listeners, we're back this week with Junea Rocha

Junea Rocha is the Co-Founder and CMO of better-for-you, Latin-inspired food brand, Brazi Bites. After graduating from college in Civil Engineering, Junea took a job in construction management in Portland, Oregon, rising through the ranks quickly and hitting a career-high. However, when Junea imagined her future, she knew she would rather take a risk on a career she was passionate about over working in something that was simply just easy for her. With a huge love for her Brazilian homeland and entrepeneruial spirit, Junea set her eyes on achieving something bigger that would take more heart and resilience than any job she ever had.

In 2010, along with her husband and Co-Founder, Cameron MacMullin, Junea decided to bring a cherished household staple that was native to her Brazilian roots, “Pão de Queijo,” AKA cheese bread, to the U.S. market without any experience in the food industry. With better-for-you foods in mind, Brazi Bites was founded on the authentic family recipe from Junea’s mother using simple, wholesome, hand-picked ingredients like tapioca flour. In a few short years after taking a giant leap and perfecting the family recipe, Brazi Bites grew into a nationally distributed brand with a cult-like following after appearing on ABC’s Shark Tank and being included twice on the Inc. 5000 list of “America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies.” Junea has been heavily involved in all areas of the business with a leading role in Sales & Marketing, growing Brazi Bites’ annual revenue from zero to millions and over 15,000 stores. She is also a skilled fundraiser having gone through multiple types of funding over the last decade, from bootstrapping to loans, angel investors, and more. In 2018, the founding duo brought on a private equity investor to help fuel the rapid growth and surge in demand for new innovation, transforming Brazi Bites as a leader in the frozen better-for-you, Latin-inspired food category.

Today, Junea remains just as passionate and more excited than ever to continue Brazi Bites’ growth, making its products a household staple in North America. Junea hopes to continue creating joyful moments for families everywhere by producing delicious, easy-to-make, naturally gluten-free foods that also guarantee to spread smiles.

During this episode we talked about:

04:00 - Arriving to the US
07:09 - "You can do anything as long as you’re an engineer, a doctor or a lawyer"
07:35 - Starting her career in the construction industry
13:15 - Leaving the construction company and starting Brazi Bites
13:32 - You need to crawl before you can walk
14:02 - Knowing that it wasn’t her calling
16:51 - From the idea to the company
18:05 - Crunching numbers
19:09 - Difficulties of the food industry
21:52 - "Americans don’t say cheese bread they say Brazi Bites"
23:12 - The company’s first three steps in the food industry
24:23 - ‘A layer not available to you until you get to a more polished level’
28:46 - The five years journey of the brand
31:36 - Revenue first five years
32:08 - Shark tank
35:07 - Not being prepared for that exposure
36:40 - Fundraise
37:30 - The accelerator program
42:54 - ‘I did the best that I could with the information that I had’