Bobo's: how a single mom built a $100M oat bar brand

Executive overview

After her marriage ended at 40 with no recent work history, Beryl Stafford needed income fast. She started baking oat bars from a four-ingredient recipe her daughter found, wrapped them in Saran wrap, and cold-called coffee shops in Boulder.

Bobo's grew from $14/month to over $100 million in annual sales over two decades — built on fresh-baked quality, grassroots demos, and resisting trends.

Grit, not expertise, drives founder success — desire, focus, and time can replace almost any missing skill.

Starting with nothing and figuring it out

• Worked at a gourmet kitchen store for $7.45/hour while navigating divorce; needed a path forward
• Daughter's four-ingredient oat bar recipe (oats, brown rice syrup, sucanat, coconut oil) became the product
• Name came from daughter Alexandra's childhood nickname, "Bobo"
• First logo: a friend sketched the girl character with a Sharpie in five minutes at Beryl's kitchen table
• First sale: nervously left samples at a coffee shop barista's counter and ran out; he reordered two weeks later
• Bought ingredients at full retail from Whole Foods for almost a year before learning food distribution

Sharing a kitchen with Justin's Nut Butters

• Rented shared commercial kitchen space from a sandwich delivery company one day per week
• Lost a larger commercial kitchen space to another entrepreneur — they agreed to split it instead
• That entrepreneur was Justin Woolverton of Justin's Nut Butters; they formed a joint LLC
• LLC covered shared rent and shared employees; each had their own bank accounts and products
• Employees alternated between making nut butter and oat bars

Getting into Whole Foods and going national

• Walked into Boulder Whole Foods bakery; manager already knew the bars from the local co-op and was waiting for her
• Committed to 12 Colorado stores on the spot — without yet knowing what "freezer-safe packaging" or demos meant
• Spent every weekend doing in-store demos herself; learned quickly that being behind the table felt safe
• Got national distribution after a UNFI East rep approached her at Expo West and handed her paperwork on the spot
• Became profitable around year six or seven (approx. 2007–2009)

Hiring a CEO and raising outside capital

• By 2014–2015, doing ~$8M in revenue but burning out after a decade of doing everything solo
• Met TJ McIntyre, who pushed her not to sell and offered to run the company together
• Created a formal company structure: shares, legal documents, TJ as CEO, Beryl as founder and president
• Raised ~$17M total in outside investment across multiple rounds
• Grew from $8M to $16M within roughly two years of bringing TJ on

Competing in a crowded bar market

• Refused to chase trends (protein, keto, superfoods) — positioned Bobo's as a timeless, grandmother-style baked product
• Bars are larger than competitors (3 oz vs. 1.5–2 oz) and deliberately imperfect-looking
• Primary marketing for years: in-person demos, product samples, athletic events, and mom groups
• Costco is a major but volatile partner — large orders drive equipment investment, but Costco rotates brands on its own timeline
• Now operates a 125,000 sq ft facility with 500 employees; mostly self-manufactures with some co-packing