I grew up in Surrey, British Columbia with a single mom during my teenage years. I was always drawn to working and took on several part-time jobs throughout high school, including overnight shifts at McDonald’s, and roles at Domino’s Pizza and COBS Bread. I didn’t yet have the confidence to act on my own ideas. 

I was always obsessed with Dragons’ Den and would write down business ideas while watching it. One idea I remember being excited about was a tea sachet infused with stevia, eliminating the need for  additional sweetener. The show introduced me to entrepreneurship and showed me that people could turn a vision into reality and create an impact. It opened my eyes to what was possible and made me want to build my own business one day.

After graduating high school in 2012, I enrolled in an arts degree at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where I launched  my first startup, Decaled Out–a vinyl and chalkboard wall decal business for students. The business failed after eight months, but it laid the groundwork for my next idea. Soon after, I dropped out of school to focus on building what became my candy company, SmartSweets.

I loved candy growing up, and so did my oma. After fleeing Germany during the Second World War, she arrived in Canada with nothing. I always admired her courage to start over and build a life here. Over the years, we shared so many special moments over candy. 

But as I got older, it began to impact my self-esteem and body image, so I stopped eating it. One day, my oma told me she regretted consuming so much  sugar from candy throughout her life. I remember thinking, “Holy smokes, you can go your whole life feeling bad about yourself because of what’s going into your body.” 

I started researching the silent epidemic of excess sugar consumption across North America, including the concept of the “bliss point,” where food manufacturers reverse-engineer products with the ideal combination of fat, salt, and sugar to make them as addictive as possible, often marketing them to kids. I realized that if we could kick sugar out of candy, it could make a much larger statement about why so much added sugar exists in our foods today. So I set out to create a better-for-you candy brand.

After dropping out of UBC in 2015, I began recipe testing in my kitchen while living in a basement suite in Vancouver’s Kitsilano neighbourhood. My landlord thought I was making weed gummies because the smoke point for the candy-making process is so high. I experimented with prototypes for gummy bears and marshmallows sweetened with stevia and made without artificial colours or flavours, selling them to students out of my car.

I secured $105,000 in debt financing through Futurepreneur, the Business Development Bank of Canada, and Vancity, using my Honda Fit hatchback as collateral for the loan. I also had to take out life insurance against it, which I remember as a humbling experience–they asked about every limb on my body.

Just under a year after I started recipe testing, SmartSweets launched on shelves in Canada in July 2016, with U.S. distribution following in March 2018. We offered a variety of naturally flavoured candy, from gummy worms to peach rings, with only three grams of sugar per serving–86 to 92 per cent less sugar per serving than  leading competitors.

That same year, I had the opportunity to pitch SmartSweets on Dragons’ Den—a moment that later came full circle when I returned as a guest Dragon myself.  But despite those early successes, building the company often felt like rolling a giant ball up a hill, knowing it could come crashing back down at any moment. What kept me going  was a mindset I held onto tightly: every challenge is an opportunity hidden in disguise. 

The clearest example of this came about three weeks before launch, when the company wasn’t even called SmartSweets yet. At the time, it was StevieSweets, named after stevia. Then my manufacturer pulled out. The few others who could take us on required much higher minimum orders, meaning I suddenly needed capital I didn’t have—right before the holidays. The day before Christmas, I was cold-messaging investors on LinkedIn to keep the company alive.

A lot of them wrote back, but no one bit. A few told me the name didn’t resonate, which stung in the moment. But I listened—and changed it to SmartSweets. It became the biggest blessing in disguise, defining the brand’s core belief: that you can be smart about what you eat without giving up the things you love.

That’s the lesson I carry into everything now: roadblocks aren’t always standing in your way—they’re often pointing you toward something better. If that manufacturer had never pulled out and those investors had never challenged the name, SmartSweets might never have existed.

By our fourth year, we were generating  $125 million in revenue and helping people cut more than 3.6 billion grams of sugar. Around that time, my oma was entering the last years of her life, and I wanted to show up for her the way that she had always shown up for me. It felt like the right moment to find a partner who could help accelerate our growth while allowing me to step back. I sold SmartSweets to TPG Growth in 2020 for US$360 million.

After signing the papers, I became sick and assumed it was burnout. Months later, I learned I was actually 6.5 months pregnant and went on to have my daughter, Willa. I wasn’t planning to bring another vision to life unless there was an authentic “why,” and that came to me about a year ago. When Willa was four, she developed a love of potato chips and started carrying a yellow chip bag everywhere. I loved potato chips too, but had stopped eating them because they either didn’t taste great or didn’t make me feel great.

That sparked the vision for Snackish: to change what a chip could be and create the everyday snack for a new generation. Fast-forward a year, and we’ve  launched on shelves across North America, including Target in the U.S., and Whole Foods and Loblaws in Canada.

Snackish is about celebrating what people love about potato chips while empowering them to feel good about enjoying them every day. Our chips are powered by potato protein—a complete source of protein derived from the potato skin—and gut-friendly fibre. We also use avocado oil instead of seed oils, creating a chip that can be  enjoyed for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, and feel great about.

The potato chip is one of the world’s most beloved snacks, yet it remains one of the least innovated. The chip we eat today is largely the same one that existed decades ago. So we built our own Snacktory from the ground up—a facility  chosen for its ability to serve both the U.S. and Canada from launch. 

Related: Canada’s Artisan Candy Companies Will Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth

I self-funded Snackish, which is one of the greatest blessings of the SmartSweets journey. It allows us to stay focused on execution without the distraction of ongoing fundraising. Just as  important is the integrity of our equity structure: our entire 15-person Snack Pack, as we call ourselves, has meaningful equity. We have  one class of shares, and that will never change. As we grow, everyone will continue to have ownership in the company.

Our vision is realized the day people feel a little snackish and reach, without thinking, for Snackish—a brand so woven into everyday life that our kids and grandkids can’t imagine snacking without it. It’s already starting to happen. When Willa asks for the yellow chip bag now, she’s asking for Snackish.

– As told to Sara Harowitz