In this first episode of Spilled Salt, Dan Rao, the CEO of Healthier Way Foods and president of Assured Edge Solutions, shares his unique entrepreneurial journey.
Starting with a degree in environmental science and biology and careers in the tech sector, Dan shifted careers. Determined to pursue his passion, he started his own consulting company and eventually discovered an opportunity in the food industry.
Dan’s journey took an important turn when he secured his first major client, Wegmans, a renowned grocery chain.
Although his products gained national distribution, he discovered that he disliked the complexities of retail sales and distribution. Instead, he found his passion in the processing and co-packing side of the business. This realization led him to establish Healthier Way Foods and Assured Edge Solutions in Geneva, New York.
One of the pivotal moments in Rao’s journey occurred during a celebration of a deal with Wegmans for spiraled zucchini. He boldly reminded his partners of the risks and sacrifices he had made to bring the product to market, emphasizing the concept of partnership and the need for mutual understanding and fair terms.
Rao’s decision to establish his businesses in Geneva was influenced by the supportive food ecosystem, including proximity to Cornell University’s food science and safety experts, as well as collaboration opportunities with other food entrepreneurs in the area.
Through his winding river, as he calls it, Dan demonstrates the importance of self-reflection, recognizing one’s strengths and passions, and the willingness to make strategic pivots in entrepreneurial endeavors. His story serves as an inspiration for aspiring entrepreneurs to pursue their passions, negotiate fair partnerships, and embrace collaboration within their industry.
Transcript
This transcript has been edited from its original form to support readability.
Maureen Ballatori: I’m Maureen Ballatori, and this is Spilled Salt, a podcast about the thrills and spills from the food, beverage, and agriculture industries.
Today’s guest is Dan Rao. He’s the CEO of Healthier Way Foods and the president of Assured Edge Solutions, which is a powdered custom co-packer based in the heart of the Finger Lakes in Geneva, New York. I brought Dan on as a person to interview for this podcast because I love his philosophy on collaboration and the way that he has approached building his business, bringing on clients who he sees as partners in the way that he works with them. And it’s really similar to philosophy to what we do here at 29. So enjoy the discussion.
Maureen: Welcome, Dan. So I want to have us get started with a little bit of your entrepreneurial story. So like many, you’ve taken a bit of a winding path to get to where Shared Edge Solutions is today. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Dan Rao: Yeah, I came out of college with environmental science and biology, double major. And there was absolutely no jobs in that field when I came out.
Maureen: And when was that?
Dan: That was way, way, way back, uh, in 1994.
So, um, the cell phone boom was happening. So I got into cell phones, selling them, kind of made a fortune, uh, at that age, you know, 20-year-old fortune. Um, And then some friends of mine and I decided to build a wireless network around Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse. So if you had a business or a home and you had a line of sight to one of our towers, you could get wireless wifi way ahead of its time.
Yeah, so that did okay. And then we were contacted by a defense contractor, a big one, General Dynamics, to start building cellular. rooftop builds all around New York State. So we hired a crew and started scaling and putting up towers and all that stuff. And because they were a defense contractor, they kind of let us down towards Washington, DC. And we opened up another company, and we were a secure contractor for the NSA, where we did some spooky classified stuff with cell phones. It was
Just a bunch of yahoos from, you know, upstate New York with a lot of bright engineers from down in the DC area. And, uh, really just took a liking to that government work.
So one of my clients there was Harris RF. I was here in Rochester, and they wooed me to come back to the city, to Rochester, where my roots are. And I ran, uh, parts of a classified sales division there until, uh, my entire group lost our foothold within the company. We were kind of off in a different direction of the company was moving into bigger, better things with their radios.
So they cut all of us. Put me at a loss because I was building widgets for the US government, having a great time doing custom things, being really cool people, both internally at the company and externally with the customers. And I was kind of at a crossroads. So don’t know if you know this part, but I took a job, and I had a lot of job offers to go back to DC, and I didn’t want to do it. I guess my wife, and I went down there to look at homes again, and my car battery melted down and I took that as a sign from the universe that I was not going to spend the rest of my life in DC traffic.
Maureen: And what was the, just to get like the right frame of mind there, cause my husband recently lost his job. What was the home situation then? You mentioned you were married. Did you have kids yet at that point?
Dan: We had two, yeah, we had two toddlers at home. One was, Francesca was maybe a year too old, and, you know, Helena was a couple of years older, so you know, the only saving grace is I had a nice payout, and I spent the summer home with them, chasing them around, but you’re scared to death. You’re scared to death when that happens. So rather than moving back to DC, I took a job in optics and photonics for a year and a half. I like to say it was my square peg, round hole portion of my life. Nothing to blame on the optic side, nothing to blame on the Dan side, just a bad fit.
So I decided at that point in time I was just going to spin out on my own and start my own consulting company and go do fun things that I like to do. Maybe shave a little less, maybe wear a few more pairs of jeans and get out there and be the people person that I am with the sales background that I had. So I started consulting on the business side, more on the sales end, helping companies grow their sales with all the knowledge that I had being in big corporate. And then fell backwards into this company that was taking apple waste from a juice company and they were drying it, and they were selling it as a dog food ingredient into big dog food, pet food companies. And I just absolutely fell in love with the idea and helped them get into human-grade sales. And then, one day, the light went on. I was standing in front of Snyder’s Lance Pretzels. They’re a group of food R&D chefs and all that. Touting the benefits of sustainable, sustainably harvested, so crop that was damaged, gluten-free sweet potato flour. Like you should put this in your pretzels, and the light went off, Maureen. Said, you know what? Dan, you’re an idiot. You’re selling this for pennies on the dollar. You should start your own brand and sell this into retail.
Maureen: And when was this? How many years post-graduation or how long ago was it?
Dan: Oh geez, that was… It was 2012.
So I’d been bouncing around for a little bit from, you know, ‘94 graduation to that point. Well, I shouldn’t say bouncing. Had a career in doing something completely different.
Maureen: Yeah, it all contributes.
Dan: So, I formed a company called Healthier Way Foods. First, I started Assured Edge back in 2012 as a consulting company. Then I spun off a second company called Healthier Way Foods.
And I landed my first client, which was Wegmans, with a gluten-free sweet potato pancake mix and a gluten-free sweet potato baking flour, we got him into Nature’s Marketplace.
The mayor of Rochester, Frank Cavallaro, made that introduction for me, and it’s kind of a cool story. So the head of Nature’s Marketplace at the time for Wegmans was a person by the name of Tim Mahan, who’s now the head of Frozen and a bunch of other things at Wegmans. But Frank set up lunch, I brought my product. Tim Mahan said, hey, my family’s gluten-free, I’ll bring the pancake mix home this weekend. If my kids eat it, I’ll call you on Monday. If they don’t, never call me again. So he called on Monday.
Maureen: And what was your feeling there? Like, were you thinking, oh, I’m so confident, this is gonna be great, I have no doubts, or were you kind of panicking a bit?
Dan: I was panicking a bit, but I was optimistic because it was my first real opportunity to sell it. It was with a hometown grocer in Wegmans. I had an in with Frank, and I felt I could do this. That’s when reality hit for me. They said yes.
We put it in the stores, and we got it to all 100 Wegmans stores. Then we got it out nationally to a bunch of other chains. I realized I hated selling into retail. It’s not my thing. I lost my face. I lost the smile. It’s just… so hard to coordinate shipping and do all this stuff.
What I really liked was the processing and the co-packing side. And I also at the same time was finding it hard to find a processor co-packer to make the small batches I needed.
So Bill Strasburg from Wegmans and Leah Perkins from Wegmans showed me this spot in Geneva. Said, hey, you want to put a factory, and this is the place to do it. And we learned about Cornell and… the food ecosystem that’s down here in Geneva, and it just kind of took off from there. So that’s my winding river.
Maureen: So, talk about that a little bit. Yes, and I have a couple of questions about that path along the way, but talk about where you are because that is a really unique place where you are in the tech farm. Why is that so unique, and why was it such a perfect fit for what you were trying to do?
Dan: Yeah. So, first of all, I walked in, and it had everything that I needed in terms of structure. It had the washable walls, it had floor drains, it had a ton of electrical jobs from the company that was in here before. And I knew that I was going to be custom, and I was going to need to put in custom machinery and custom this and that.
So it was a blank, empty slate that I could start with. Couple that with, it was right, it is right next door to the head of food science and food safety in the country from Cornell. Literally a stone’s throw across the parking lot. So if I wanted to launch a new product from Wegmans and I needed to get approval from Cornell to say that it was food safe, that’s the place to do it, and they’re right next door.
Couple that with you have all these other food entrepreneurs in this area and businesses associated like yours, right? So you have this foothold and this knowledge in this food eco-space that I would dare say most other marketing. companies don’t have, you get it like you totally understand.
So do all the other companies around here, so we’re able to work together and collaborate. So you kind of got this feeling like you were welcome here, and you were welcome to develop these new products as fast as you could.
Maureen: That’s great. I want to go back. You had said you got, I think it’s really unique for a food company, their first deal to be Wegmans. Right. And that is the power of Frank Cavallaro, who hopefully will be a future guest on the podcast.
Dan: I bow down to him.
Maureen: Right. Exactly. Don’t we all? Then to go national from there. I mean, that’s the dream that a lot of food brands are aiming for. What was it? Talk more about what was it that you didn’t like? You said you hated it? That’s a pretty passionate word.
Dan: I think, well, you know me well enough to know I’m a passionate person, and I’m driven by that passion. And that is my soul. It’s the making things happen.
It’s the relationships with people and companies and doing good work. And I felt like getting it launched nationally, I was pigeonholed into just negotiating shipping rates and stocking fees and all these things that I did in a former life. Negotiated contracts. I didn’t want to do it anymore.
I wanted to go in the direction of the entrepreneur and the face, the customer-facing side of it. And that’s what I missed. So, it was just not fun anymore. And hate might be a strong word, but I loathe it. I still hate scheduling trucks. It’s not my favorite thing.
Maureen: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s one of the things about the beauty of being an entrepreneur is that if you have the ability and you give yourself the time and space to be reflective, right? And pay attention to what you like and don’t like about what you’re doing, then when it’s your thing, you can make that pivot, you know, and you could hear and listen and pay attention to, wow, I really like the production side of this, but the distribution part of it is not for me. So I’m going to lean into this side. One of the other things I love about your story, too, is that you had once told me about how you had gotten a big deal with Wegmans with the spiraled zucchini, right?
Dan: Yep.
Maureen: And that everyone in your company was up and cheering and celebrating, and you said, hold on one, hold on a minute, we got to set some parameters on this deal. So I’d love for you to tell that story because I think it’s helpful for entrepreneurs to understand that just because you’ve got the power. The partner has the power doesn’t mean that you can’t also, you know, bring your voice to the table. Can you tell that story?
Dan: Yeah. I felt so I felt like so that whole group at Wegmans that moved over from Nature’s Marketplace, they moved into Frozen, and they were creating a renaissance with Frozen, which was great. So we launched, we got ahead of Green Giant. We developed spiraled veggie noodles, figured out how to freeze them and thaw them with Cornell, got them into a package, into my brand. In six months from a napkin sketch, we were on store shelves in the frozen aisle at Wegmans under my brand.
Maureen: That is wild.
Dan: Herculean effort, flew to Italy, bought the last two spiralizers on the planet at the time. Put them in a friend’s factory in Syracuse, taught him how to freeze food, and do all that stuff in six months.
So, we had this gathering where? Executives from Geneva and Wegmans and my company and other places were gathered. Everyone was hooting and hollering, and I called a timeout and I said, “Can you define the word partnership to me?” And everyone stopped clapping and kind of swallowed and said, what’s this guy doing?
And I said, I just want you to know what I went through to get you to have this round of applause and to get you the revenue that you’re gonna make off these noodles. I put my house up as collateral to buy this machinery, to buy the packaging, to buy all the vegetables up front. I’m holding all the risk.
I’m even holding the brand. It’s my brand, it’s not even under the Wegmans brand.
So, I want you to think long and hard, Wegmans, about what it takes from this side, to get to this point, and they heard me. I think, you know me, I’m not afraid of anything. I was a little afraid to make that statement, but I wanted to put a pin in the ground and say, this is what I did. This is what Dan Rao did, and my company did for you.
So, what are you gonna do for me? Better terms, all these things. And I think entrepreneurs need to understand that, that there are humans on the other side of that fence.
Most of them don’t have the experience that we have of creating these products. but they ought to learn it.
Maureen: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And what so that that sounds like a really important moment for, you know, to for you to define partnership, which I know is a cornerstone of who you are. So what was what were some of the outcomes that you got out of that, you know, kind of stake in the ground?
Dan: Yeah. The team, the frozen team at Wegmans was fantastic to work with. We had open and frank conversations about challenges of getting, you know, frozen brussel sprouts across the Atlantic from Belgium.
How hard that is, how hard it means to put the word organic in front of things. And just had a very open relationship with them to understand the challenges that we had. And then they put some back on us, you know, Hey, this product isn’t selling. What, what can we do different? We changed the size of the bag. Very collaborative. And I didn’t expect it to happen, but it did. And they’ve been a great partner to work with.
Maureen: Yeah, that’s fantastic. So I want to talk more about that concept of partnership and collaboration, because I know how important that is to you in all aspects of your business. So can you speak to some examples about how you’ve incorporated the concept of collaboration into the company? I think one great example is your team. and any thoughts that you want to share about kind of your approach to that concept of partnership and collab.
Dan: Yeah. So, um, business owner to business owner. This is our kingdom, right? This was our idea. We’re the only ones that understand what it is in our heads that we want to be in the end.
We try to articulate it to the team, but we’re the ones that hold that. And I remember when I was in optics and photonics, I’ll get to your point in a minute, we were on a bus in an airport. And the business owner said to me, you know, you’re just not as passionate as I am about this business. And I said I never will be. I don’t own it. It’s just not the same.
And I, I told them that as a former business owner, I’ll never have the feelings towards this company. Like I would have found it. That’s it.
I got really lucky with the word partnership. I ran into this guy named Keir Meisner who was dying on the vine at his job. Um, big brain, you know, came out of college at Duke as a rocket scientist, worked for Ford Motor Company, got his MBA from Cornell in marketing, ran clinical divisions of Johnson & Johnson and Bausch and Lomb. When I met him, he was executive director of marketing at the University of Rochester Simon School. He just felt like he was dying on the vine.
A friend at Wegman’s, his wife, introduced me to him and said, you guys should meet. I thought, what am I going to do with this dude? Look at this resume. You’re smart.
You’re smarter than me. You’re better-looking than me, and you make a lot more money than me. What am I going to do with you? He said these words, I just want to do good work.
And it resonated with me, and I said, you know what, you’re right. So we worked out a way to just kind of slowly bring them on board. And it’s been the best partnership that I could have ever written up in any business plan. He comes at things from here. I come at things from here, but we always meet in the middle, but we have the same goal, do good work
Do good work, do good work, and surround yourself with good people and good customers.
So when we come across our employees who say, hey, it looks like we need somebody new to hire. Do you mind if I refer somebody? Absolutely. I’ve had Lily here since 2017, when I opened this factory. Of course, I’m gonna trust her judgment. And it always works out. We’ve embraced their families. We’ve embraced their heritage. We’ve been able to teach them English and Spanish to those that couldn’t read and write. But it’s all surrounding ourselves with doing something good.
So for us to use the word partner, it has to feel right. It has to be part of that story, part of that Dan and Keir story, part of that Dan employee story, much like working with your team, it just felt right. You guys got it.
And I think you’ll understand the way I say this, you’re on the same frequency as us. So I always feel like we’re humming along here, and people are up here, or they’re down here. What did I do? Why am I so different? And then you come across people that are at the same vibe and the same frequency, you’re like, yeah.
And that’s. That’s what’s important to me, whether it’s a customer or a business partner or someone that wants to collaborate on something, we have to feel that. If I don’t feel it, we don’t do it.
Maureen: Totally agree. We’ve made a big shift in how we bring clients on at 29 to really introduce conversations about core values much earlier in the discussion. And that has really helped us make sure that once we get to an agreement on the terms, what are you looking for? How can we help you? Do we feel like we’re a good fit? When we have those conversations earlier on, it just makes, it’s not a negotiation, it’s an alignment, right?
Dan: That’s an alignment.
Maureen: Exactly. So couldn’t agree more. And I agree that there are people who run their businesses in very different ways and probably have very different outcomes. Maybe they’re making millions and millions of dollars, who knows, but I would much rather live a life of quality and do work that I’m happy to come to work every day. My team is happy to come to work every day. Yeah, so in that vein of working with great people, doing great work. You’ve got some impressive brands that you’re working with. I mean, huge national brands, Momofuku and Burlap and Barrel. How did you broach that? How did you get them in as clients of Assured Edge?
Dan: Me trying to go out there originally, swinging for the fences. When we started the company, when we started the factory, obviously, we had our own product, and we had a couple of others. And it’s just about taking chances and believing in yourself.
So going back to even Wegmans, I knocked on their door and said, you guys have that organic farm down there in Canandaigua, and you put wheatgrass on as a cover crop. Well, wheatgrass is a booming superfood powder right now. Why don’t we harvest it, dry it, and I’ll powderize it, and I’ll put it in a pouch for you? You can sell it as Wegman’s wheatgrass powder. And they said, oh my God, yeah. So story kind of got out from there.
I went to Love Beets locally here and said, what are you doing with your beet waste? Let’s make beet powder. And kind of started getting my confidence on going to that. And then just started to reach out to some of the different custom spice brands out there. And Burlap was one of the first that we targeted.
And we just hit it. We just hit it off. They have their whole social enterprise thing that they’re doing with single-origin spices, and it resonated with me. Um, and we kind of got lucky. They, uh, Ethan is a former chef, and he’s got really good connections and. He just kept referring folks over to us, and we grew a relationship with Cornell. I look that way because they’re over the buildings over that way.
We’re on their website. So people found us, and we’re unique. Like someone like Momofuku has a really complicated process to make their spices. And we were able to do it. And I don’t think many people would take that on, um, cause it’s risky, but the reward, the reward is you have that beautiful brand and connections to, you know, all of the chefs that they know.
So we’ve kind of become this niche custom spice manufacturer, which is exactly what I want to be. I don’t want to be McCormick spices, no offense, McCormick. Uh, and I always say the day that I go completely automated. is the day I sell the company because I do believe it’s our people and our methodology that makes it unique why those chefs keep coming to us. It’s great. They’re a fun bunch to work with, chefs, especially if they’re a celebrity. They are definitely set in their ways, but we get it. It’s a trial and error of making it happen, and I think they appreciate that.
Maureen: Yeah, that’s great. I know that speaking to that, like you’re talking about custom and niche, and one of the things that’s unique about Assured Edge is all your machinery is on wheels, right? So that you can move stuff around to truly be that niche custom solution for what people are looking for. So, yeah, I think that’s a great point. I think that’s a great point.
Dan: Yeah, because everyone comes through, and yeah, we’re a spice manufacturer and a spice co-packer, but everyone’s got different packaging. Everyone’s got some different nuance to how they have it want to have it chopped or milled or whatever. And we need to be able to adjust to that. At the same time, you know, we’re looking at ways to streamline some of our regular customers to take stuff off of wheels, to dedicate some, some lines to them, to get them more efficient because a big part of it is changeover. So when we have a large customer that we’ve been working with for a long time. come to us and ask us, hey, would you guys be willing to do this and this and this to streamline? Of course, they want to get their costs down. We’re open to doing that too.
And that’s part of the entrepreneurial spirit, right? You have your business plan. Here it is. And then here it is the next day because you got to make changes. And then here it is the next day. And the core is the same, but the outliers are different.
And we have to grow and change with the times.
Maureen: And efficiency helps you be more profitable, which helps you be able to do more and support your team more and pay them better and, you know, add upgrades and upgrade equipment and all of that stuff. So really, you know, it just makes good business sense, too.
Dan: Yeah. And the wheels are probably, you know, it’s a great analogy, and it is true. And we think we have it on our website, but that’s kind of the, the Dan part of it, right? Like moving stuff around and trying new things. And you never know when you’re going to get that customer that takes off like Burlap & Barrel. They’re on Shark Tank and doing all those things. And I feel very proud that we helped them from their humble beginnings to where they are now.
And they helped, they’ve helped us.
Maureen: There is a lot of pride in that.
To that point of collaboration. Has your collaborative approach to relationships, business, has that ever gone wrong?
Dan: Yeah, it has. I think you learn. You learn to trust your spidey sense.
I tend to give customers a lot of rope, and sometimes it comes back and tangles around your neck because the…
Maureen: I was just gonna say my husband loves to say enough rope to hang yourself with.
Dan: Yeah, I didn’t want to say that quite on video, but that’s, that’s what I meant. Um, you learn to trust and, you know, well, you learn not to trust, maybe, um, you trust a little too much, to begin with. And there’s a lot of people out there that take and don’t give. Um, so sometimes it does come back to bite you, but as a whole, I’d say it’s been 90% successful, and you just have to learn to trust your gut and, you know, it was hard during COVID cause you couldn’t. You couldn’t do the face-to-face.
Maureen: Yeah, yup, couldn’t agree more.
Dan: And I think growing up, the way I grew up in a very Italian family where everything was in your face, you learn how to read people and read situations very well. And doing this to get a new business was tough, even to maintain, right? We both went through it as business owners, like, oh my gosh, it’s tough.
Maureen: Right. Absolutely. What’s next for AES?
Dan: Expansion as always. Um, you know, we’re in a great spot in this building, but we’re a little bit hamstrung by the size. You’re here. You see that we fill up the hallways. Um, and we wanted to put a new building up, but just financially post COVID with the cost of materials, just like the housing market, not worth it right now. So, look into creative ways to create more space for us in here and add more machinery, add more people to do different things, you know, maybe, uh, maybe get into some roasting. If we don’t roast today, we dice, dehydrate, mill, and do all kinds of stuff. Maybe we’ll get into roasting. Maybe we’ll do some custom liquid fills, batchy stuff like that, but growth. I wanna add more people.
I love going out there and seeing all the smiling faces. And we just added a couple new people and it’s just fun to watch them grow.
Maureen: Yeah, that’s awesome.
Dan: It really is.
Maureen: Would you ever consider a second shift? I mean, wouldn’t that? What are your thoughts on that? Wouldn’t that double what you’re currently doing?
Dan: Yeah, that’s a tough one though. I think it depends on the labor pool. You know, a lot of our folks that are here, and the reason that we’re successful is they have families, and they work hard for their families. Asking them to go away from their families counteracts a little bit about what we do.
Maureen: Good point.
Dan: We’ve talked about it a lot, but I like the vibe we have. I’d be afraid if we went to second shift, nothing against that. I’ve done it in my past. I’ve worked second shift, even third shift.
Maybe we lose some of that family aspect that we’re trying to incorporate here.
Maureen: Yeah. And that’s the challenge of growth, right? Is being able to, like you’re saying, listen to your Spidey Sense, follow your gut, you know, kind of listen and see sort of the future in a bit, right? In terms of what the atmosphere is telling you that you kind of have to decide that together–is this the right choice or not. And you kind of, you know, it’s part of the hard part of entrepreneurship is making those decisions.
Dan: Yeah, and I think we’re lucky we’ve had our businesses in place long enough, we being you and I, that we can spot trends, we can feel trends, we can feel panic moments, and we can feel like when we really got to start planning for the future. We didn’t have that a year one, year two, year three.
Now we have a sense of it, so you have to listen to it.
Yeah, it’s a trade-off, right? It’s always a trade-off.
I’d love to streamline and put something automated in, but that means I have one less person out there.
One less car, one less story, one less person to talk to and watch grow. So it’s kind of a tough thing for me.
Maureen: Yeah, yeah, that’s great. Anything else that you want to share that I didn’t ask you about today that you think could be good for this audience of kind of startups, entrepreneurs, and food bev and ag that would be good lessons or good kind of key takeaways for them?
Dan: Hmm. I think we should get together more. I think…
Maureen: Like in-person get-togethers kind of thing? Yeah. Right.
Dan: Entrepreneurs, business owners, whether it’s a marketing company or a food manufacturer, we’re in the same mindset.
Maureen: Right.
Dan: Why, you know, again, I don’t want to blame COVID for that, but I used to do a lot more of it, I felt. And now I’ve grown accustomed to, I’ll get to that tomorrow. I’ll meet that person tomorrow.
I think this format is great for us to see who else is out there doing things, and it’s a great way for us to meet. And I welcome it because I could learn something from every single one of you out there.
Maureen: Yep. Yep. That’s great. So we’ll have to see when we can do spilled salt. The in-person kind of. Yeah, great. I’m down. You bring the drinks. I’ll bring the people. Love it.
Dan: The happy hour version.
Maureen: Thanks for your time, Dan. Appreciate it! Thank you for listening to Spilled Salt! I’m Maureen Ballatori. For more information about the podcast, visit www.29designstudio.com. If you have questions for me, you can submit them through the contact form on the website. Be sure to like and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss an episode.