The Origin Built Because We Had to Survive
This platform wasn't built for the market. It was built because we couldn't afford to fail.
The 3-Year Journey
Colin McNamara, co-founder of Always Cool Brands, Private Label Advisors, and Architect of alwayscool.ai, spent three years launching 7 FDA-regulated food products nationally. Not as an observer. Not as a consultant. As someone whose livelihood depended on every decision being correct.
Sprouts was just the first retailer to make it through our development pipeline. Multiple national retail private label products are currently in development.
The Stakes
When you're working with FDA-regulated products, mistakes aren't bugs you fix in the next sprint. One allergen mislabel could kill someone. One financial miscalculation on thin margins could mean insolvency. The stakes were existential - both for customers and for the business.
"Our business had to be perfect or die. There was no middle ground."
The Breaking Point
Q3-Q4 of year three almost killed me. Seven products launching at once. Everything that was supposed to be spread out stacked together. 150% utilization. Six days a week, twelve-hour days, 4:30am anxiety about container arrivals and cash flow. Every spreadsheet error was a potential catastrophe. Every manual reconciliation was a chance for something to slip through.
The breaking point came when I realized that the manual processes weren't just exhausting - they were dangerous. Human error at scale, with these stakes, was unacceptable.
The Transformation
As an engineer by training, Colin's response was to write code. Not a grand vision for a platform - just tools to survive. EDI processing to stop manual data entry. State machines to ensure nothing advanced without validation. Reconciliation gates to catch errors before they became disasters.
"Every manual process I observed, I wrote code for."
The Result
Today, the platform powers $9M in annual revenue. The team operates at 10-20% utilization instead of 150%. The development pipeline now holds 4x the products we launched. But more importantly: the 4:30am anxiety is gone. The platform catches the errors. The reconciliation gates hold. The business survives.
- 150% utilization
- 6 days/week, 12-hour days
- 4:30am container anxiety
- Manual everything
- 10-20% utilization
- 4x products in development pipeline
- Automated peace of mind
- Platform runs itself
Our Philosophy
Every feature in this platform exists because we needed it to survive. We don't build features for feature lists. We don't add complexity for enterprise check-boxes. If it's in the platform, it's because someone's business depended on it working correctly.
That's the standard we hold ourselves to. Not "good enough for demo" but "good enough to bet the company on." Because we did.
Private Label Advisors
The expertise gained from these three years now powers Private Label Advisors - our B2B consulting arm helping brands navigate the same challenges we faced. With an $8M contracted pipeline and 40% faster launch timelines than industry average, we're taking what we learned and helping others avoid the painful lessons.
Visit Private Label AdvisorsWant to see the platform that was built from this journey?