October 10, 2016

You Have to Leverage Your Networks with Natalie Sulimani

Nicole C

Natalie Sulimani is an entrepreneur, lawyer, and food snob at heart. She is the co-founder of Bam Bam Broth, a bone broth company in New Jersey selling locally sourced beef and chicken bone broth. Natalie started making bone broth in her earnest for her own health issues and then for her co-founder Scott who is an avid soccer player.

In this episode you’ll learn:

- How Natalie found the right commercial kitchen to work in
- How having a co-founder has really helped progress her business
- How Natalie has leveraged networks to grow her business

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Tell us a little bit about you, Natalie Sulimani, and what you do.

My day job is a start-up attorney. I actually help people just like me set up their companies and poise them for, what hopefully is great success. Bam Bam Broth is my passion project which has taken flight.

Can you tell the story how Bam Bam Broth started?

About 5 or 6 years ago, I had my own health issues. It was probably an autoimmune, but all I knew is that I’m really stressed out. I had rashes pretty much everywhere. I went to the doctor and he gave me antibiotics and it didn’t work. I started using bone broth to heal myself which worked. I still use it today for my health. When I had co-working space I met Scott. He played soccer and always got injured because apparently soccer for him is a contact sport. I made the broth for him and together we used it for our own health, and we wanted to spread that.

Can you share the moment when you felt like this went from hobby to an actual business?

We went through a number of commercial kitchens and I think when we went from our last commercial kitchen to this commercial kitchen, it really kind of blew us away that this is not a hobby, it’s a business. We went from 4 cookers to now a whole wall of cookers.

How did you figure out what you had to do to legally run your business?

I had to learn what locally I could do in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. You need to check the local laws. Do a lot of searches. When you get to the commercial kitchen that you use, the people there are really a good resource. Ask a lot of questions. Everybody really does want to help you figure it out.Contact the local health department because that’s the governing body that you need to deal with when you’re making food.

How did you come up with your sales strategy?

I always feel like you need to differentiate yourself and not compete because I don’t think you’ll ever win by competing. At the end of the day, Bam Bam Broth is a reflection of my and my partner’s personality, how we like to sell the product, and how we like to represent the product. Not to say that I didn’t get swayed by what other people are doing out of the industry, but I really kind of put my head down, figured out what made sense for us because both of us have full time jobs and understand which avenue we wanted to go for. Everybody thinks that the be all and end-all is being in Whole Foods and not everyone can achieve that. It’s a lot of stress to start your business and say I need to get into Whole Foods. You have to recognize, you’re not going to have that supply from the beginning because every business has its own issues with supply. We had to devise a strategy that would complement us, complement the budget that we were working with, and allow us to organically grow while not capsizing ourselves.

Natalie Sulimani is a lawyer and co-founder of Bam Bam Broth, a bone broth company in New Jersey selling locally sourced beef and chicken bone broth. Natalie started making bone broth for her own health issues and then for her co-founder Scott whose an avid soccer player.

Find Natalie!
Website: Bam Bam Broth
Instagram: @bambambroth
Twitter: @bambambroth
Facebook: Bam Bam Broth