A brand that was not only affordable but also fun to use and featured a top-notch design. Today, a funky-green bottle of Graza retails for just US$18 a pop. As Allen Dushi, Graza’s co-founder, explained, “We want everyone to be able to embrace their inner chef in the kitchen and experiment with new ingredients – whether you’re a next-level home cook or someone who has burned pasta in the microwave.”  From ideation to execution  Before launching Graza alongside Benin, Dushi had established a career in the fashion industry as the vice president of Jachs, a New York-based menswear brand.  Dushi recalled that, as a finance student, he had no intention of working in the fashion industry, but fell into it by chance. “I graduated from college in 2009, right at the height of the Great Recession,” Dushi told Inside Retail.  “I had a finance degree, and no one from my graduating class could get a job. So I was looking for something to do and got an opportunity with a clothing brand that was just starting.” What Dushi had thought would be a one or two-year opportunity turned into a 12-year brand journey. As the third-ever employee on the team, Dushi learned on the job, taking on a variety of large projects from building out the brand’s first website when Spotify had just launched in the US in 2011 to helping open physical retail stores. For as many exciting and skill-building opportunities Dushi was able to take on with Jachs,  he never quite grew to love the fashion retail sector.  “I was just so excited to participate in the growth and have an impact on that growth, but fashion was not something I was interested in. I was interested in the business and its operations, but never the product. Andrew Benin had always felt the same way, working on products that he was not too passionate about.” When Benin, a longtime colleague in the industry, approached him about launching an olive oil brand together, Dushi jumped at the opportunity. Within just two weeks of Benin pitching the idea for Graza, Dushi put in his notice at Jachs and dived straight into pre-launch prep.  “We both love cooking, and everyone loves olive oil; it has no enemies. It is such a refreshing product category to be involved in. It was really just a fortunate idea Andrew had come up with that we both got really excited about, and were both ready to dive into full-time at that point in our careers.” Growing Graza into a US$48 million brand  Prior to officially launching Graza onto the market through a direct-to-consumer (DTC) site, Benin and Dushi raised just over one million dollars of capital from friends, family, various angel investors and Neil Parikh, Casper’s co-founder.  In theory, while this sounds like a great number to start with for funding, every brand founder, startup, or veteran can tell you that costs will stack up and cut in quickly. This is what inspired Benin and Dushi to remain as “scrappy” as they were on day one of running a business together and to remain so to the present day.  “While we’re both trying to be a little less scrappy, it’s something that’s in both of our DNA.  We are very, very cautious and frugal with our spending and examine every decision we make, with even US$1,500 expenses needing to be approved.” The co-founders’ thriftiness turned out to be the brand’s biggest boon. Aside from hiring a PR agency, Dushi explained there was little budget set aside for social media or other marketing efforts. Instead, he and Benin decided to tap into their networks to grow a mailing list and started teasing the product a month or so before launch. Two months before launching the brand’s DTC site, the co-founders were sending packages with handwritten notes to hundreds of influencers they felt would be interested in using and showcasing Graza’s products.  In a sense, Graza was a brand built to shine on social media, explained Dushi. “We talked about our product as being able to play best supporting actor in any cooking video. Every cooking video has that oil-in-the-pan shot at the beginning, and we thought that if we could get this into the right people’s hands, even if we couldn’t sponsor them, we’d still get that moment. We could own that oil in the pan moment in a way that no other brand has been able to.” Dushi and Benin’s social media gamble paid off, as they sold out of their entire stock within one day of launching online. Not too long after that, a representative from Whole Foods reached out about stocking the brand’s products. By the end of the year, Graza’s bottles could be found on Whole Foods shelves nationwide, and the two startup veterans found themselves with a hit on their hands. Since first landing on the retail scene, Graza has expanded its retail partnership list, including Target, Costco, and Walmart. By the end of 2024, the company brought in an estimated US$48.4 million in revenue and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.  Further reading: How Alissa Miky harnessed red algae to create functional beverage brand Oomee