Inside The Cold-Pressed Truth
Twenty-three chapters in three parts, from the first green juice to the Nasdaq bell. Part memoir, part field manual, and built to be used: here's what each chapter covers, so you can start where you are.
- 23 chapters
- 3 parts
- Foreword by Jay Shetty
- Retail metrics appendix
Not sure where to begin?
Before the first chapter
Why the book exists, and who's vouching for it.
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Foreword by Jay Shetty
Why Jay calls the book essential reading for founders in consumer industries, and what it was like to work alongside Jeff.
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Preface
How a slow pace and a lot of unsolicited advice on Kilimanjaro earned Jeff the nickname Babu, and why he wrote the guide he couldn't find when he started.
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A gift before you begin
The free toolbox that comes with the book: models, workshops, the CPG Founders Club and a trial of Babu AI. Get it here.
I
Building a Strong Foundation
Everything that has to be true before you scale: the founder, the plan, the category, the money and the culture.
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The Founder's DNA
Opens on the afternoon of July 3, 2018, then rewinds to a high school end zone and a three-second failure of nerve. Why founders are made rather than born, and the six traits worth building on purpose.
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Pre-Launch Preparation
The honest questions to answer before you quit your job or ask anyone for money: capacity, risk, support, capital, real demand and taste. Includes the entrepreneurial readiness assessment.
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Pre-launch Roadmap with Timeline and Budget
A twelve-month, eight-phase plan on a budget of about $250,000, the Rule of Twos, and the day a Whole Foods buyer asked Jeff for a HACCP plan he'd never heard of.
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The M.A.P. Framework for Assessing Your Category
Market, Audience, Positioning. Map your arena from industry down to niche, define a customer far sharper than "health-conscious," and write the one-line position that passes the stranger test.
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Stage-Gate Process
How large CPG companies kill weak ideas early, adapted for founders who can't afford to spend a year on the wrong opportunity.
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Life Stages of a Brand
The four stages from creation to scale, with Suja as the case study: the green juice, a name found over lunch at Whole Foods, the discovery of High Pressure Processing, and a $1 million spoilage lesson.
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Fundraising
Forty-plus rounds distilled into an eight-step process: runway, soft-circling, decks, SAFEs, valuation and the psychology of asking for money.
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The X-Factor of Culture and People
Hiring scorecards, equity as culture, Cul-de-sac Management, and the morning the CEO speared a pallet of beet juice with a forklift.
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Ten Startup Misconceptions That Can Crack Your Foundation
The beliefs that sound reasonable and quietly sink founders, starting with the myth about how many startups fail in their first year.
II
Scaling the Engine
How a fast-growing brand keeps control: systems, shelf space, pivots, partners and the Coca-Cola years.
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Scaling Quickly Without Losing Control
Embracing chaos, pushing decisions down, choosing good over perfect, and getting celery juice from a Trader Joe's phone call to national shelves in under six weeks.
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Building an Engine That Lasts
What to own and what to outsource, solving the one constraint that limits your growth, and the climb from about 28 percent gross margin to nearly 50.
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Winning the Shelf
Category managers, syndicated data, velocity against the retailer's median, and why the shelf is never really yours.
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The Art of the Pivot
Hero SKUs, 275 launches in seven years, always having a Plan B, and where disruptive innovation ends and churn begins.
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Validation Through Strategic Partnerships
Inside the Coca-Cola deal: two-step structures, internal champions, pausing a deal to fix a quality issue, and fighting for the angel investors who got there first.
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Collaborative Retail Relationships
How Suja built real partnerships with Whole Foods, Costco, Target, Walmart and Trader Joe's, why the order you enter retailers matters, and the home-cooked dinners that built trust.
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Coca-Cola's Fateful Decision
The call, the debt, weeks with under $100,000 in the bank, and the margin lesson that changed how Jeff builds every brand since.
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A Pivot in Action
A down round, a fortune teller's prediction, and how wellness shots at about 60 percent margins replaced kombucha at 12 and rescued the business.
III
The Exit and Key Learnings
The turnaround, the sale, what it cost, and the rules that apply to any startup.
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The Moment of Truth
From a $10 million loss to profitability in a year, fifteen buyers who passed, stepping aside as CEO, and the sale.
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Personal Reflections on Leading a Startup
The good, the bad and the ugly: what building a company costs your health, your marriage and your family, and why Jeff would still do it all again.
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Babu's Field Guide for Startup Entrepreneurs
Fifteen rules for any startup in any industry, from making sure the math works to owning the customer relationship.
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Fatal Flaws and Recoverable Mistakes
Jeff's private list of the mistakes that end companies, like auto-renewing contracts, personal guarantees and formulas you don't own, and the ones you can survive.
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The Universal Principles For Any Startup
Ten truths that hold in every industry, from "cash is oxygen" to "it takes longer than you think."
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The Journey & The Destination
Mount Rainier by moonlight, piranhas on the Amazon, a flight to Kathmandu, and why you start the climb before you feel ready.
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Epilogue: Ringing the Bell
Suja Life goes public in May 2026. Jeff on what he felt watching from San Diego, and the lesson he'd hand every founder about who you are without the title.
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Appendix A: A Founder's Field Guide to Essential Retail Metrics
Velocity, ACV, TDPs, dollars per point of distribution, promotion lift and incrementality: the language of retail, defined.
Be there on launch day.
The book is out Tuesday, November 17. Get the buying links and the fireside chat invite in your inbox that morning.
The fine print
| Title | The Cold-Pressed Truth |
|---|---|
| Subtitle | A Founder's Field Guide to Building, Scaling, and Selling a Consumer Brand |
| Author | Jeff Church |
| Foreword | Jay Shetty |
| Publisher | Reflek Publishing |
| Release date | |
| Formats | Paperback and ebook |
| ISBN, paperback | 978-1-968164-59-1 |
| ISBN, ebook | 978-1-968164-60-7 |
| Cover design | Molly Seabrook |
| Editing | Emily Sutherland |