Sam Kressler

Sam runs Stir Innovation, a culinary-driven, sustainability-centered CPG consulting firm focused on creating real, clean, delicious food products for its clients and their consumers. Stir works with natural products companies ranging from pre-revenue startups to brands with several hundred million in annual sales, guiding them through the entire innovation process, from ideation through scale-up to steady-state production.

What area(s) of focus would you most like to address with your mentees?

I can help them with any aspect of the operations side of innovation (R+D, commercialization, supply chain, ideation, coman, stage gate, etc)

How do you plan to structure your monthly meetings?

I generally like to meet for 60 min, every 2 weeks in order to go over an agreed upon agenda led set by the mentee, but if I see other issues arising after our initial 1-2 meetings, I will often redirect to help them navigate through those potential blind spots

Finally, who would be an ideal mentee for you in this program, given your areas of expertise and experience?

A founder/entrepreneur who could use some coaching to help themselves get out of their own way.