Ryan Rouse

Growth advisor to consumer businesses with a focus on every line of the P&L | Previously, Co-Founder at Factor Meals (acquired), CEO at Highkey

Growth-minded CPG leader with deep experience across finance, brand building, and operational leadership.

After more than a decade in finance—culminating in an eight-year tenure at Merrill Lynch—I co-founded Factor_, a ready-to-eat meal delivery company that went on to be acquired by HelloFresh for $277M in 2020.

I joined HighKey Snacks as Chief Marketing Officer and later CEO, guiding the low-sugar snack brand through rapid expansion and an acquisition in 2024.

I'm currently the President of MALK Organics, a fast-growing, near nine-figure brand redefining the plant-based milk category with its commitment to clean, organic ingredients and uncompromising quality.

And I write a newsletter about what it really takes to grow—your company, your mindset, your tolerance for chaos:
​
​• The unfiltered truth about building a brand
• Why “strategy” isn’t always strategic
• What to do when everything feels on fire
• Mindset shifts that keep you sane(ish)​
• Founder mistakes, market moves, and lessons I’m still learning​
​
​Part playbook, part perspective shift.
For anyone trying to grow something—and keep their head on straight.

Sign up using the link here (or below my profile pic above): https://ryanrouse.me/

Vice President | Partner

Data driven investors in early stage consumer brands. 

The best people I've hired never complained about the workload.

Or the pressure.

They thrived on it.

They're burning out from the culture.

High performers can handle a lot. They're wired for it. They manage their time, stay focused, and actually like the work.

They don't leave because they're tired.

They leave because they're drained.

There's a difference.

Tired comes from hard work.

Drained comes from bad leadership, unclear priorities, and politics.

One recharges with rest.

The other doesn't go away until the environment changes.

If your top talent is checking out, don't assume they can't handle the work.

Ask yourself if they can handle the culture.

—

I write emails. Unfiltered takes from 12+ years building brands.

It's free. Subscribe (or don't):

https://ryanrouse.me/

We just launched a line of coconut-based creamers and they absolutely slap.

(Shout out to my kids who would cringe hard at that.)

No gums, no oils, no natural flavors. 

Just real, recognizable ingredients and a texture so creamy it'll make your coffee blush. 
​
🥥 Available in 3 flavors: Vanilla, Sweet Cream, and Unsweetened (for the purists)​
🥥 USDA Organic, non-GMO, glyphosate residue-free​
🥥 Clean label, full flavor: proof you don’t need additives to taste good ​
​
Hitting refrigerated shelves across the US as we speak. 

You should try them. For real.

Promoted two people today.

It's the best part of leadership.

Not the title changes. Not the org chart updates.

The part where you give great people room to run.

You watch them take ownership. Make decisions you wouldn't have made. Push ideas further than you could have alone.

And when you realize they didn't need you to tell them what to do.

They needed you to get out of the way.

That's the job.

Find people who are better than you at what they do.
Give them space to prove it.
Then watch them show the world what they're capable of.

Jayme and Barrett - you earned it many times over. I'm just happy to be a part of your journey and grateful you are part of mine.

I couldn't do any of this without you. 

Thank you 💙

The fastest way to get promoted?

Make yourself replaceable.

Sounds backwards. It's not.

I've watched talented people get stuck in roles for years. Not because they weren't good. Because they were too good at one thing.

They hoarded knowledge. Built processes only they understood. Made themselves "essential."

And their boss couldn't promote them.

Because who would do their job?

Meanwhile, the people who got promoted were doing the opposite:

Documenting everything.
Training their backup.
Building systems that worked without them.

They made it easy to backfill their role.

Leaders don't promote bottlenecks. They promote people who can be moved.

The employee who says "only I know how to do this" thinks they're proving value.

They're actually proving they're stuck.

The employee who says "here's the playbook, anyone can run this now" just showed they're ready for bigger problems.

Your job isn't to be irreplaceable at your current level.

It's to make your current role so transferable that promoting you becomes obvious.

—

I write emails. Unfiltered takes from 12+ years building brands.

It's free. Subscribe (or don't):

https://ryanrouse.me/

Entrepreneurs should think in two time frames:

30 years
90 days

I read this in a book by the legendary Dan Sullivan over a decade ago and it hurt my brain.

Because the more common advice is to regularly map out 1/3/5 year plans.

But the older I get and the more time I spend in early stage companies, I've moved more and more towards his away of thinking.

Cast a long term vision.
Execute what's in front of you.

It can be as simple as that.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you liked this post, you might like my emails. No BS musings from 12+ years in the trenches building brands.

You might not, but it’s free so WGAF:

https://ryanrouse.me/

Social media will have you believe if you haven't made millions by 30, you're late.

It's bullshit.

Warren Buffett made 99% of his wealth after 50.
Ray Kroc was 52 when he started McDonald's.
Vera Wang was 40 when she entered fashion.
The list goes on and on...

Know what those extra decades give you?

Pattern recognition. You've seen enough cycles to know which ones matter.

Scar tissue. You've failed enough to know it won't kill you.

The pressure to achieve young is manufactured. 

By people selling courses. By media celebrating outliers. By your own impatience.

You're not late. The game is longer than they tell you.

Good thing too. 

Because big moves develop over decades.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you liked this post, you might like my emails. No BS musings from 12+ years in the trenches building brands.

You might not, but it’s free so WGAF:

https://ryanrouse.me/

Your mood is not private.

It's broadcasting to everyone around you.

Show up to a meeting stressed, and watch what happens.

People tense up. Conversations get shorter. Ideas stop flowing.

Show up calm, and the opposite happens.

People relax. They think clearer. They bring solutions instead of panic.

I used to think emotions were personal.

Something I could feel without affecting anyone else.

I was wrong.

Every time I showed up frustrated, my team got quieter.
Every time I showed up anxious, my team got nervous.
Every time I showed up scattered, my team got confused.

They weren't reading my words.

They were reading my energy.

And matching it.

As a leader, your emotional state isn't just yours.

It spreads.

Like a cold. Like a yawn. Like panic in a crowded room.

The question isn't whether your emotions are contagious.

They are.

The question is: which ones are you spreading?

Because your team is catching whatever you're carrying.

—

I write emails. Unfiltered takes from 12+ years building brands.

It's free. Subscribe (or don't):

https://ryanrouse.me/

I used to think being intense was the problem.

It's not.

Letting other people control that intensity is.

I'm wired hot. Always have been.

It's helped me build things, push through walls, and get results most people won't.

But I also let it burn bridges I didn't need to burn.

The shift came when I stopped waiting for someone else to tell me to dial it down.

I learned to own the dial myself.

Still intense. Still emotional.

But now I decide when to turn it up and when to pull it back (most of the time, not perfect).

It's been the difference between intensity being an advantage vs. a liability.

Self-awareness isn't about changing who you are.

It's about controlling how you show up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you liked this post, you might like my emails - no BS musings from 12+ years in the trenches building brands.

You might not, but it’s free so WGAF:

https://ryanrouse.me/

I've never been the smartest person at any company I've been at.

But I'm always the fastest.

At Merrill Lynch, I was 1 of 75,000 employees. Could've been the best analyst on the floor. Still replaceable.

At a startup? Different game.

My superpower wasn't an MBA or some fancy framework.

It was knowing how to find shit fast.

When my co-founder at Factor_ asked "How do other meal delivery companies handle returns?"

Everyone else: "Let me schedule some calls."

Me: Ordered from 3 competitors. Submitted returns. Pulled their policies. Built a framework. Done.

Couple of hours, tops. 

Founders already know how to find answers. That's how they got this far.

They're not asking you because they're lazy. They're drowning.

The employee who says "I researched this, here are three options, I recommend X because Y" - and did it FAST - becomes indispensable.

The one who says "I don't know, what do you think?" becomes overhead.

At early stage companies, resourcefulness and urgency beat credentials every time.

No waiting. No deferring. No "I was waiting for you to give me the go ahead."

Run. It. Down. 

And do it quickly. 

Leaders will notice. 

Trust me.

—

I write emails. Unfiltered takes from 12+ years building brands.

It's free. Subscribe (or don't):

https://ryanrouse.me/

5 things founders get wrong about employee motivation:

(From someone who got all 5 wrong)

1. Expecting owner-level commitment from employee-level equity.

You own 40% of the company. They own 0.1%.
You'll make millions if it works. They'll make rent.

Stop acting surprised when they work less hours.

2. Thinking your sacrifice is their baseline.

I worked for no salary for three years. Maxed out credit cards. Emptied my 401k. 

That was my choice. Not theirs.

Your personal bet doesn't become their obligation.

3. Using guilt instead of respect.

I used to send passive-aggressive Slack messages when people left on time. "Must be nice to have work-life balance."

Real asshole moves.

Then one of my best employees quit.

In his exit interview, he said: "Ryan, you chose to mortgage your house for this company. I didn't."

He was right.

4. Believing more equity will change how people work.

I once gave someone more equity expecting it to change their output. It didn't.

That's because everyone has a "work MO." A default gear.

If they're a killer, they'll be a killer.
If they do the bare minimum, they'll do the bare minimum.

Equity won't flip that switch.

(It will help retain the killers, tho.)

5. Confusing presence with productivity.

The person cranking until 9pm isn't always your best performer.

Sometimes they're just slow. Or inefficient. Or avoiding something at home.

Judge output, not hours.


The fix isn't complicated.

Find people who give a shit about doing good work.
Pay them well.
Respect their time.

They won't work until 10pm unless it's truly necessary.

But when it is necessary, they'll be there.

Because you hired people who are wired for it. 

And earned their trust.

—

I write emails. Unfiltered takes from 12+ years building brands.

It's free. Subscribe (or don't):

https://ryanrouse.me/

I used to think hustle meant force.

Push harder. Work longer. Make it happen.

That mindset nearly broke me by the time I turned 37.

I was always pressing, always grinding, convinced that if I just worked hard enough, success would come faster.

But the thing I learned watching people who actually win long term is they don't force it.

They create the conditions for success, then let it unfold.

They work hard, but they're not desperate.

They're confident things will work out because they've done the work.

So I stopped trying to control every outcome and started trusting the process more.

I still show up every day. I still put in the work. I'm still wildly ambitious.

But I'm not white-knuckling my way through life anymore.

And since I stopped forcing everything, more opportunities started showing up.

Better opportunities. Clearer decisions. Less stress.

Turns out, there's a difference between working hard and working anxious.

One builds momentum.

The other burns you out.

I'm playing the long game now.

And it feels a hell of a lot better than the sprint I was running before.

—

I write emails. Unfiltered takes from 12+ years building brands.

It's free. Subscribe (or don't):

https://ryanrouse.me/

I used to think winning arguments made me smart.

It didn't.

It made me insufferable.

Healthy debate has respect and curiosity.

Ego-driven arguing has neither.

One sharpens you.

The other isolates you.

In healthy debate, you ask questions to understand.
In ego-driven arguing, you ask questions to trap.

In healthy debate, you say "I hadn't thought of that."
In ego-driven arguing, you say "Yeah, but..."

In healthy debate, you admit when you're wrong.
In ego-driven arguing, you double down.

In healthy debate, you want to learn something.
In ego-driven arguing, you want to be right.

Here are some things that helped me:

1. Pause before responding. Ask myself if I'm trying to understand or trying to win.

2. Repeat back what I heard. "So what you're saying is..." Forces me to actually listen.

3. Find one thing I agree with first. Even in disagreement, there's common ground.

4. Ask "What am I missing?" Instead of explaining why I'm right.

5. End conversations with "That gave me something to think about." And mean it.

The shift won't be immediate.

But people will start engaging with you differently.

Conversations get richer.

Ideas get better.

Relationships get stronger.

If you catch yourself needing to have the last word, you're probably arguing from ego.

If you walk away from a conversation thinking differently, you're probably debating with curiosity.

Took me way too long to learn the difference.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you liked this post, you might like my emails - no BS musings from 12+ years in the trenches building brands.

You might not, but it’s free so WGAF:

https://ryanrouse.me/

Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist.

This Picasso quote gets twisted constantly.

People think it's about tactics. 

But it actually means master the fundamentals so deeply that innovation becomes instinct.

In business, I see this constantly:

The CMO who never ran a P&L trying to "disrupt" pricing strategy.

The founder who skips unit economics to chase viral growth.

The exec who wants to "break the mold" before understanding why the mold exists.

The best leaders I know spent years in the trenches.

Learning why things work before reimagining how they could work better.

They got creative because they got good first.

Master the boring stuff first.

Then go be an artist.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you liked this post, you might like my emails - no BS musings from 12+ years in the trenches building brands.

You might not, but it’s free so WGAF:

https://ryanrouse.me/

All senior leaders need to be numbers people.

Doesn't matter if they're in marketing, ops, or product.

If they can't read a P&L, understand unit economics, or connect their decisions to revenue, they're not ready for the seat.

Not "build a financial model from scratch" numbers people.

Not "debate GAAP accounting" numbers people.

But you need to speak the language of business.

Because every decision either makes money or costs money.

And if you can't see that connection, you're flying blind.


—

I write emails. Unfiltered takes from 12+ years building brands.

It's free. Subscribe (or don't):

https://ryanrouse.me/

In consumer, your customers don't care how smart you are.

They care that their order arrives on time.

That you're in stock when they need you.

That your quality doesn't fluctuate batch to batch.

They're not buying your IQ score.

They're buying your ability to deliver on expectations - some general to the market and some specific to your product and promise.

That's all execution.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you liked this post, you might like my emails - no BS musings from 12+ years in the trenches building brands.

You might not, but it’s free so WGAF:

https://ryanrouse.me/

Your VP of Sales just quit mid-quarter.

No notice.

Just a call at 8am and a pile of deals in limbo.

That's when your team learned who you really are.

Your values aren't what you say in the good times.

They're what you do when everything's on fire.

You can preach respect all day long.

But if you lose your mind on someone when something goes wrong?

That's the real culture.

The version of you that shows up under pressure is the version that gets
replicated across your entire organization.

Not the polished one.

Not the prepared one.

The stressed one.

The frustrated one.

That's the leader your people will become.

So before you blame your team for losing their composure, poor communication or lack of ownership, ask yourself this:

What did I show them when things got hard?

Because they were watching.

And they learned.

—

I write emails. Unfiltered takes from 12+ years building brands.

It's free. Subscribe (or don't):

https://ryanrouse.me/

The most frequent question I get from entrepreneurs is "What advice would you give your former self?"

My answer: Pace myself.

They blow me off.

Not to my face, but I can tell.

I get it though.

I did the same thing when I was in their shoes.

Thought I was different.

That I could outwork the system.

That entrepreneurial fire made me feel invincible.

Until it didn't.

If you're putting in 80 hours a week consistently, it's not a matter of if you're gonna burn out, it's a matter of when.

Because you can't sustain that for the time required to play the long game. 

(Which is the only game in town.) 

Find your sustainable pace now before you're forced to. 

You're running a marathon, not a 100-yard dash.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you liked this post, you might like my emails. No BS musings from 12+ years in the trenches building brands.

You might not, but it’s free so WGAF:

https://ryanrouse.me/

Hard work is table stakes, not a flex. 

Your competitors work hard. 

It's necessary, but not sufficient. 

You also need to think in ways others don't. 

Most people default to putting in more hours because thinking hurts. 

It's easier to stay busy than to sit with a problem until you crack it.

I wish success in business was just about working harder. That would be simple. 

But the world doesn't give a shit about your hours.

It rewards people who create the most value. 

Value comes from seeing what others miss. 

From connecting dots in ways that seem obvious after but weren't before.

From working hard *and* smart.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you liked this post, you might like my emails. No BS musings from 12+ years in the trenches building brands.

You might not, but it's free so WGAF:

https://ryanrouse.me/

Your manager isn't thinking about you nearly as much as you think they are. 

I promise. 

And that's a good thing. 

Carry on.

Most people think they're either risk-takers or they're not.

But that's not really how it work.

Risk isn't something you have a fixed capacity for.

It's something you build tolerance to.

Like lifting weights.

You don't walk into a gym and deadlift 400 pounds because you "have it in you."

You start small. 

Then add weight over time. 

Each rep expands what you can handle next time.

Risk works the same way.

The person who quit their corporate job to start a company didn't wake up one day with superhuman courage.

They made a series of smaller bets first.

A side project. A conversation. A decision to stop playing it safe in one area of their life.

Each one stretched the muscle.

So if you think you're not a risk-taker, you're probably right.

But it's not because you can't be.

It's because you haven't trained that muscle yet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you liked this post, you might like my emails - no BS musings from 12+ years in the trenches building brands.

You might not, but it’s free so WGAF:

https://ryanrouse.me/

I help omnichannel DTC / retail / ecom brands reallocate marketing spend to grow profit and cash flow.

When spend scales, the real leak usually isn’t overspending.
It’s confidently funding customers and channels that don’t compound.

After we work together, you’ll have an answer to one question:
“Where should the next dollar go (and not go) to maximize profit over the next 90 days?”

So you can:

✔️ Double down on the channels that recruit high-margin repeat buyers
✔️ Stop subsidizing the channels that mostly drive one-and-done / low-margin customers
✔️ Execute a clear Cut / Scale / Fix plan (with specific budget moves + priorities)
✔️ Activate a scored + segmented customer dataset to:
      ✔️ focus retention spend on the highest-profit customers
      ✔️ build high-value acquisition audiences (lookalikes) to recruit more of them

I’ve done this with premium consumer brands and national retail networks (1,000+ locations), where the real game is customer quality + channel economics.

If you’re a CEO / CMO / Growth lead and want a clean answer to “where should the next dollar go?”, book a quick 20-min walkthrough here: https://calendly.com/vert-ai/discovery.

If timing isn’t right, DM “PROFIT” and I’ll send the exact inputs + a sample Cut/Scale/Fix memo.

Guillaume Belisle

The most dangerous place for a data scientist is inside a Jupyter Notebook.

I see this tragedy play out in enterprises every week.

The data science team celebrates. They achieved 94% accuracy. The model works perfectly on their laptop. They high-five.

Then they hand it to engineering to deploy.
And the project dies.

Why? Because a model in a notebook is a prototype. A model in production is software.

- The notebook doesn't care about latency. Production does.

- The notebook doesn't care about API uptime. Production does.

- The notebook doesn't care if the data schema changes at 3 AM on a Sunday. Production crashes.

We don't have a modeling problem. We have a translation problem.

Data scientists are paid to optimize for accuracy. Engineers are paid to optimize for stability.

If you don't build a bridge between those two incentives, you will build a graveyard of expensive, highly accurate models that no customer ever sees.

Stop celebrating the prototype. Celebrate the deployment.

#DataEngineering #MLOps #DataScience #Data #VertAI

Data & AI Consultant | Founder @ Vert AI | I Help Brands Increase Marketing ROI with Enterprise-Proven AI Strategy

Everyone wants to build the AI Strategy. Nobody wants to clean the CSV files.

I recently sat in a boardroom where executives were debating which LLM to use (GPT-5 vs. Claude vs. Gemini). Meanwhile, their customer data had:

- Duplicate emails.
- Missing phone numbers.
- State codes mixed with country codes.

It doesn't matter if you have the smartest model in the world. If you feed it garbage, it will give you a hallucination.

Data Science is: 
• 20% Modeling (The "sexy" part). 
• 80% Cleaning, Piping, and Governance (The "janitor" part).

If you want to win in 2026, stop hiring more AI architects. Hire more data janitors (engineers). 

A clean dataset with a simple regression model beats a messy dataset with a neural network every time.

Respect the mop.

#DataScience #AI #Data #DataQuality #VertAI

The best AI Strategy for your company right now isn't buying GPUs. It’s writing better SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures).

I tell clients: "AI feeds on context."

If your processes exist only in your head, the AI starves. If your processes are documented clearly in Notion/Confluence, the AI feasts.

Documentation used to be a chore for humans. Now, it is the Source Code for your digital workforce.

The companies that will win with Agents are not the ones with the best models. They are the ones with the cleanest instructions.

Ambiguity is the enemy of automation. Clarity is the prerequisite for scale.

If you want to prepare for the future, stop obsessing over the tool. Start obsessing over the manual.

Write it down.

#Operations #Data #Leadership #AI #VertAI

Your marketing dashboard is a history book. You need a weather forecast.

Most CMOs run their departments looking exclusively in the rearview mirror.

They spend their Monday morning meetings asking reactive questions: 

- "What was our ROAS last week?" 
- "Did the email campaign work?" 
- "How much did we spend in Q3?"

This isn't strategy. This is accounting.

It tells you exactly what happened, but offers zero leverage on what will happen. It justifies your past existence, but it doesn't optimize your future investment.

The top 1% of data-driven companies have stopped reporting the news and started simulating the future.

They are pivoting to predictive simulation: 

- "If we shift $50k from Meta to YouTube, what happens to our CAC in 30 days?" 
- "If we cut top-of-funnel spend by 20%, what is the lag time before revenue drops?"

Reporting creates a scorecard. Simulation creates a roadmap.

Stop paying your data scientists to be historians. Pay them to be meteorologists.

One tells you it rained yesterday. The other tells you to bring an umbrella tomorrow.

#DataScience #Marketing #Econometrics #PredictiveAnalytics #Data #VertAI

Buying an enterprise AI tool for a messy data stack is like buying a Ferrari for a dirt road.

You have the engine. You have the horsepower. You have the cutting edge technology.

But you are going to get stuck in the mud 100 feet past the driveway.

I recently audited a company looking to deploy autonomous agents for customer support. They were ready to sign a six-figure contract for the software.

I asked to see their customer interaction logs.

- 40% were unlabelled.
- The "Resolution" tag was used inconsistently by 5 different managers.
- The knowledge base was a folder of PDF files from 2019.

Putting a high-speed AI on that infrastructure doesn't speed up service. It speeds up confusion.

Before you buy the Ferrari, pave the road. Clean the data. Label the logs. Standardize the tags.

Paving isn't sexy. But it's the only way to go fast.

#DataEngineering #Data #AIReadiness #AI #VertAI

taplio

The Battle

Ryan Rouse

Guillaume Belisle

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreRyan Rouse's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreGuillaume Belisle's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Ryan Rouse

Guillaume Belisle

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Ryan Rouse's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreGuillaume Belisle's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreRyan Rouse's LinkedIn Performance