What if getting cancer at 22 ended up changing your entire life – and was the catalyst building a $120M company?

Loren Castle was fresh out of college when she was diagnosed with stage 2 Hodgkin’s lymphoma. During treatment, she became obsessed with nutrition and realized something was missing from grocery shelves: cookie dough made with clean ingredients that still tasted amazing.

With just $25,000, a toaster oven, and a suitcase full of samples, she started Sweet Loren’s from her tiny New York City apartment.

With passion, grit, intuition, and a mission to make clean, simple ingredients accessible to everyone, Loren persevered and built a brand that, in many ways, is just getting started

Today, Sweet Loren’s is the #1 natural refrigerated cookie dough brand in America, generating over $120 million annually and sold in more than 35,000 stores including Whole Foods Market, Target, Kroger, and Publix.

In this episode, Nina sits down with Loren for an honest conversation about surviving cancer, handling grief, building without investors, staying profitable, balancing motherhood, and proving everyone wrong.

Loren opens up about:

• How cancer led to the idea for Sweet Loren’s

• Starting a food company from a studio apartment

• Landing Whole Foods with no experience

• Why she turned down Shark Tank

• Losing her mom while launching the business

• Building a profitable company without raising money

• The rejection that fueled her success

• Balancing entrepreneurship, motherhood, and pregnancy

If you’re interested in entrepreneurship, business stories, startups, food brands, women founders, mindset, or building a company from scratch, this episode is packed with insights and motivation.

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