DiversifyHER
DiversifyHER is a Gen Z-led podcast where I, Raven Heyward, engage with leaders to discuss the importance of representation. My mission is to inspire young girls, create meaningful mentorship opportunities, and explore ways to empower and uplift individuals in various industries and leadership roles.
DiversifyHER
EP 43: Starting with the Root: Building Connections & Creating Impact with Marlee Reiter
Listen as Raven Heyward, founder and host of DiversifyHER, converses with Marlee Reiter. She is the Founder and Host of the Rooted podcast, where she interviews founders, executives, and thought leaders in the health and wellness industry who are helping our society get back to our roots in terms of our food system, social connections, purposes and passions.
Connect with Marlee:
Instagram: themarleemethod
LinkedIn: Marlee Reiter https://www.linkedin.com/in/marlee-reiter-144b2a235/
Podcast: Rooted https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rooted/id1772484361
Hello everyone and welcome to Diversify Her Podcast. I'm your host, raven Hayward, and today I'm glad to welcome Marlee Reeder. She is the founder and host of Rooted Podcast, where she interviews founders, executives and thought leaders in health and wellness industry who are helping our society get back to our roots in terms of our food system, social connections and purposes and passion. She has interviewed notable guests like the CEO of Solid Core, sweet Green, purely Elizabeth and more. She is graduating from UVA's McIntyre School of Commerce this spring and is hoping to find a full-time role in this industry that she is passionate about. She's originally from Long Island, new York, but her family recently moved to Southwest Florida. In her free time, you can find her working out in any form, going on multiple walks a day outside, spending quality time with friends and family, cooking healthy recipes and reading either romance novels or nonfiction. Thank you so much for joining me today. How are you doing?
Speaker 2:Thanks so much, raven. I'm doing well. It's finally spring in Charlottesville, virginia, which is where I am right now, so that has been putting me in a really good mood. As you said in the intro, I've been going on a lot of walks since. The weather has been awesome, so definitely doing well. How are you?
Speaker 1:Well, I'm doing good, and I can say the same thing about how it is in Chapel Hill. It's sunny out today, so I'm really glad about that, and the weather is finally starting to go up, instead of being in the low 50s and 40s like it has been in the past. But I want to thank you so much for joining me today and I want to get us started with. Can you share a little bit more about your academic and extracurricular experiences that led you to where you are today?
Speaker 2:academic and extracurricular experiences that led you to where you are today. Yeah, so I definitely can share about my academic and extracurricular experiences that led me to where I am. But I honestly think I'm going to twist the question a little bit, if that's okay with you. Yeah, I think I would like to kind of start a little bit earlier than that, because I think it's kind of important to note my earlier experiences that led to where I am. So I kind of have been thinking a lot about this lately. Actually, just why I kind of have more of an entrepreneurial mindset and why I'm kind of okay doing things a little bit against the grain and carving my own path, and I think it kind of stems back to the fact that I have parents that have always pushed doing my own thing and they've never really pushed just doing what everyone else is doing. They've never pressured me to be a doctor, be a lawyer, you know that typical thing that we hear a lot of parents are doing, which is totally fine if some parents do that. It's just that that hasn't been my parents' approach.
Speaker 2:And in school, for example, growing up, I was never punished, for example, if I got a bad grade, because my parents always cared about what my effort was as opposed to the outcomes that I had, and I always was putting in my 100% best effort.
Speaker 2:And then, alongside that, my dad is also an entrepreneur and he's actually never worked for someone himself. So I growing up, I was witnessing my parents, obviously, and they're like the closest people in my life. Throughout my entire life I was having that combination of not having someone push something on me but then also seeing an entrepreneur, day in and day out, build businesses and all of that. So I think that that is really what has kind of had a really large impact on personality in general and, while being at UVA obviously has had a great impact on me as well. I feel like it is just really important to note that that's kind of had a really really large impact on just my personality before even coming here. I could stop there, though, if you have, if you want to dive into that at all, or I can go into UVA, which whatever direction you want to take it in.
Speaker 1:No, I would love to dive more into that. I feel like I resonate with a lot of what you were saying. My parents, they're the same way. They never pressured me to really necessarily choose a career path and even growing up, when I was doing certain things, they were always like, as long as you tried your best, like we just want to make sure you're putting forth your best effort. You know, no matter what that is, but I'd love for you to dive more into that. I really enjoyed you talking about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so well. I guess that kind of is like the overview of that. But I think it is also kind of what has affected my path at UVA, specifically because I never came into UVA with a specific major even in mind. I came in completely undecided and was open-minded to everything, just to give a little bit of background. Doesn't know about UVA, I'm in McIntyre, which is the undergraduate business school here, and most people come into UVA when they are applying and if they want to be in McIntyre, most people come in knowing that that's what they want to do. We call it quote unquote pre-com because it be in McIntyre. Most people come in knowing that that's what they want to do. We call it quote unquote pre-com because it's the McIntyre School of Commerce.
Speaker 2:I like that was not on my radar at all. I didn't think I wanted to do business at all. I didn't. I wasn't interested in finance or accounting. I'm not a tech quantitative person at all and I had this perception that that's what being in the business school would be like. So I was kind of just open to anything.
Speaker 2:I took an entrepreneurship class on a whim here in my fall semester of my second year and I just absolutely loved it. So I decided to look into the prerequisites to apply to the business school because ours is a. It was a two-year program, it's now a three, but it began. It began in my junior year here. So I started looking into the prerequisites and what the classes are here and I noticed that it's actually not all finance and accounting and you can kind of do whatever you want in the business school. It doesn't have to be all these like more math and technical heavy classes.
Speaker 2:So I spoke to the admissions team actually because it was very unheard of of not coming in knowing that that's what you want to do. And then also I didn't take any of the prerequisites. So they said well, we've actually never really had this situation before where you haven't taken the prerequisites, we won't see what your grades are when you apply. If you want to roll the dice and take the chance and apply, then you can, but we really don't know if you're going to get in or not. So I said you know what. I am going to roll the dice and apply because, why not, I'm really interested in this and I ended up getting in without taking the prerequisites. I had to take them before actually getting in, but they never saw what my grades were in most of the prerequisites.
Speaker 2:And I kind of told this story like I'm really doing this because of how passionate I am, I'm fully taking a risk because I'm going to have to take these classes, yeah. So I think that that also kind of defines a lot about who I am and what I'm going to have to take these classes, yeah. So I think that that also kind of defines a lot about who I am and what I'm like. I'm really willing to kind of do things through the back door and kind of in an unconventional way, and that's kind of what's defined a lot of my life and what has happened in my life, just by doing things a little bit differently and not afraid to kind of go against the quote unquote rules, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, and I think that that's needed, because I feel that a lot of the times we think things need to happen in the traditional sense, or whenever we're told no or whenever we hear someone may potentially be doubting us.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I can honestly turn people away, or they think that there's not another way.
Speaker 1:So I love the fact that, even though you were taking a risk, you still bet on yourself and you took that chance, and I think we definitely need a lot more of that.
Speaker 1:And I feel that with the past conversations that I've had with folks and the way that they talk about Gen Z is, they definitely say that we're bold and we're always going against the grain, but no one really understands how much you know how much that takes and like just how much fearlessness that takes for someone to actually be able to do that and have the resilience to push through, even if they are told no. So I respect you and I commend you for doing that and congratulations with how you've been able to pursue that. And now you're in your senior year and you're about to graduate soon, and the way that I met you is actually through College Contact, which is a program that I want you to just expand more about. I know that you're the chief of it, so what has been the most exciting or challenging part for you in the role so far, and how did you even get involved with what college contact is?
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so kind of a lot to unpack there. I will start I think this makes most sense with how I got involved in it. So well, actually, no, I'll start with what it is. So, basically, college Contact it was founded by two UVA McIntyre graduates, so they graduated here back in 2023. And basically what it is, it's a startup that connects high school students applying to college with current undergraduate college mentors to help with the admissions process. So the two founders they, like I said, graduated back in 2023, and they've been doing this full time ever since graduating. It's been doing really well ever since they've been graduating and they've helped over 5,000 students get into school.
Speaker 2:I like is, like it's pretty clear, I'm really interested in entrepreneurship and startups and back in my second year at UVA, I decided to start a podcast called learning out loud with two other students here at UVA, because the three of us were really interested in starting something ourselves, but we didn't really know exactly what that was. So we thought it would be really interesting to just interview a bunch of entrepreneurs from a lot of different industries that we probably would have never spoken with if we didn't do this. So Sophie and Leah, who are the two co-founders of College Contact are one of the companies that we decided to interview on Learning Out Loud because they were in our network at UVA and it was pretty easy to get in touch with them. So I kept in touch with Sophie and Leah. After interviewing Sophie on the podcast, and because they knew that I was interested in startups and we kind of made a good relationship, they actually reached out to me to be the chief of staff.
Speaker 2:This was now a year after interviewing them. They just had an opening in their chief of staff position and before this, quite honestly, I would have never expected to be working at this company. I'm really interested in the health and wellness industry and it kind of was an opportunity that just landed in my lap because of the connection that I made through the podcast. So that's how I got involved. It's been an awesome experience getting to work under the CEO and COO of a startup, especially because I want to be at a startup and, in the long term future, would love to be starting something of my own. Would love to be starting something of my own. So it's definitely been a great experience and they've let me kind of have a lot of autonomy and take a lot of, a lot of things under my own belt and just do a lot for myself.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, oh, my goodness. Okay, I want to go back to learning out loud. That sounds really cool and I want to know is it still happening? Are you still running that podcast? I know that you have your own podcast that I wanted to get into as well, with Roots, but could you talk to me just about your experience with podcasting and what first drew you to wanting to start?
Speaker 2:yes. So, like I mentioned, the reason that we decided to start it in the first place was more just to learn from entrepreneurs and founders so that we can take those learnings ourselves and hopefully one day apply them to something that we start ourselves. And we figured, okay, if we're going to be talking to all these founders, why not record it and publicize it for other people to hear? So, through doing learning out loud, it's no longer we aren't doing it anymore because one of the co-hosts graduated and actually both of them graduated now, so it kind of just didn't make sense anymore. But through doing it, I really saw that it was a great way to get people to have conversations with you and it's not just say, ok, we can have a 15 to 20 minute coffee chat or something like that. Okay, we can have a 15 to 20 minute coffee chat or something like that.
Speaker 2:You're getting to talk to some really, really interesting and amazing people for sometimes over an hour and it really gets to help you form real relationships with people, like how I kept in touch with Sophie, for example, and then I was at the top of her mind for then reaching out to someone about the chief of staff position and I have a lot of other examples like that as well. So, since I knew that I definitely want to be in the health and wellness industry, that's kind of what led me to then say, okay, since I had this really great experience with this podcast, I want to start my own rooted in the industry that I definitely want to be in and meet some really great people in that industry and, same thing, publicize the information that I'm learning along the way.
Speaker 1:So that was kind of the thought process there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel that I pretty much had the similar thought process whenever I started my own podcast in high school, and it really has become such a great way to network and just you know, know that people are in your corner and want to see you succeed and are there to help you in any way that they can. I truly think that it does make an impact and I understand that the past week or last week, you had the chance to go and do some more networking and you had a great event that you went to. That was all because of your podcast Rooted, so could you tell us more about that experience?
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, yes, Okay. So last week I was at this massive event called Expo West. If you don't really know about the food CPG industry, you probably don't know what it is, but you honestly might, because all these companies have been like posting all about it on their social medias. But anyways, what it is is the largest trade show for better, for you, consumer packaged good products. So about a year ago, before I even had the podcast rooted, I first saw this trade show on a bunch of companies that I follow and it's hard to even explain like what it really is, but basically it's this huge conference center and there's crazy booths like the craziest things that you can even imagine. You'll have to like show some videos or something like I'm not gonna be able to explain it like crazy, crazy booths of like every company like CPG company that you can imagine is there. And I saw this online and it was like all my favorite favorite companies that were there and I was thinking I have to go to this, like this would be so cool to go to, and I kind of subconsciously made it a goal in the back of my mind to go. It wasn't really a goal to go to this year's or anything. It just was a goal in the back of my mind like I need to go to this. So fast forward. I end up starting a podcast in this space interviewing a lot of the companies that are there. So like Purely Elizabeth Jackson's Chips, mush, primal Kitchen, just to name a few and I had this idea. I was like, okay, let me go on the Expo West website. This was probably back in the fall, this fall. Let me go on the Expo West website and see who counts to be able to go, because it's not open to the public. You have to be involved in the industry to be able to go, but it's over like 70,000 people that were there. So there's a lot of people involved in this, but you have to like count in some way to be able to go.
Speaker 2:So at first I tried playing the student card. I called them and I said, hey, like I'm a business student, like I could get this written in my school paper, blah, blah, blah. That didn't work. Sometimes the student card really does work and I'm actually like really upset about graduating because I will no longer be able to play that. But that didn't work.
Speaker 2:So then I started looking through the categories and like really reading through the technicalities and I was reading under press that blogs count. Some influencers count, but for blogs and influencers you have to have a specific amount of following, so that didn't count for my podcast. But then I saw that podcast count. You don't have to show any metrics or anything. So I just took a whim and I applied.
Speaker 2:I really didn't think I was ever going to hear back from them. My podcast is definitely not that big yet keyword yet but I really didn't think anything was going to happen. Two weeks later I got an email saying that I was accepted and they like showed me my badge and everything and it was the greatest experience ever because I got to meet in person so many of the companies that I've had on my. It's great, connecting with founders that you've either been emailing a bunch, calling a bunch, but then also just getting to see the energy and the motivation and inspiration like in person person. It's just really hard to even articulate honestly how amazing of an experience it is, and I think I'm not doing the best job of explaining what it's really like. If you like don't have a visual, but I'll definitely like send you some clips or something yes, please do so.
Speaker 1:What was your favorite part of the conference and how long was it? Where did you stay Like? I want more details about this conference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's in Anaheim, California, so right outside of LA. It's actually like right by Disneyland. So one of the nights we actually my friend came with me, so one of the nights we actually went to like a Pixar hotel for dinner, which was actually kind of a mistake. I made a reservation at a random place and walking distance ended up being that, so that was fun. What was the original question, though?
Speaker 1:I wanted to know what was your favorite part of the conference.
Speaker 2:So honestly I so basically all the companies they give you samples of food all day long, like you're walking around. It started at 10 am, it ends at 6 pm. It's a three day long conference. I was only there for two of the days, which was perfect. For someone in my case, who's not like a buyer, retailer, investor or something like it was the perfect amount of time. So I was expecting to be eating a lot, because you're walking around for literally like six hours just eating and like just going from booth to booth. But I wasn't expecting to be that full Like you're eating little samples but for six hours straight. It's a lot. Like I genuinely have never been that full in my entire life. But honestly, like I loved it. It was so cool getting to try all these new products that are coming out.
Speaker 2:But I would say my favorite part, like I kind of already mentioned, was just getting to meet in person a lot of the people that I've been speaking with. I even went out to dinner with one of the people that I've been speaking with. I even went out to dinner with one of the founders that I've had on the podcast. So that was a really great experience. We had like a two hour long conversation and I just really appreciated that he even reached out to me to do this in the first place. So I think it just really shows that these connections that you make just literally by taking a chance and sending an email can lead to some crazy things like all this literally just started with me starting the podcast with sending one email and then eventually I'm like going to this crazy like 70,000 person event that I had to apply to get into. So just crazy stuff, I would say.
Speaker 1:Now that's amazing and again, like you said, just the power of networking these connections. So, for any of my listeners that are watching this or listening, what advice do you have for them? If maybe they don't know how to start with reaching out to someone, or maybe they feel that their LinkedIn isn't up to par with if they're going to get a response or not, do you have any tips or advice for them?
Speaker 2:Yes. So I think I want to give a little bit more background before answering this. So because I gained a lot of confidence doing this because of something that happened, like something that I did at UVA last year, so I think that that will help give some more context. So in the same. So not in the same entrepreneurship class, but with the same professor. So I think that that will help give some more context. So in the same. So not in the same entrepreneurship class, but with the same professor. So I've taken two entrepreneurship classes with the same professor His name's Chip Rensler, shouting him out.
Speaker 2:So this was last year in my spring semester. So the first assignment in our entrepreneurship class was to find the best speaker that we could possibly think of to come into the class. At this point in time I did not have the podcast rooted, so the point of the assignment was, like I said, to get the best speaker to come into the class. But then, additionally, it was a competition because the class was going to vote on which person in the class got the best speaker to come in. So I'm a really competitive person and I was really motivated to get some crazy person to come in. So I kind of had a unique tactic. When reaching out to people, I decided to say that we already have this huge entrepreneurship event happening at UVA, with dozens of founders coming in and hundreds of students coming to watch. It was kind of a white lie, to be quite honest. So I was fine doing that because at the time I wasn't really reaching out to some really high level people yet, so I had no idea that someone could actually potentially respond. I really didn't think someone was going to respond. I ended up getting the co founder and CEO of Kava to respond and say that he was interested in coming. So I was kind of like, oh shoot, well, I told him that this event is happening and that's why he thinks that he should be coming, is happening and that's why he thinks that he should be coming. So I ended up getting the class to vote for the CEO of Kava to come in because obviously, like people wanted the CEO of Kava to come in. And we ended up actually making this an event after that and we kind of based it on the founder of Kava coming in. We strategically then decided to reach out to people and say we have the CEO of Kava coming in, we have this event happening. So then we ended up getting the founder. This was with the help of a few others as well. It wasn't just me the founder of Hydro Flask. I don't know if you've heard of Alex Hormozy. He's like a big entrepreneurship person online and founder of Mush Primal Kitchen. Founder of mush primal kitchen.
Speaker 2:So doing that is really what gave me a lot of confidence. To then realize, okay, I'm literally just an average college student, but I got multiple people to response me. Oh, like to answer your question for the listeners. So are all of you like? Not saying you're all average, but I'm saying like you can reach out to whoever you want. Not saying you're all average, but I'm saying like you can reach out to whoever you want. Sure, most people might not respond, but there are going to be a lot that will, and you just have to do it, and the first person that you get to respond is going to give you so much confidence.
Speaker 2:To then realize, okay, I can continue doing this and it honestly just for me at least, becomes really fun and kind of like a game, like I'm kind of strategically thinking okay, what can I say to get this person to answer me?
Speaker 2:How can I get this person's attention and for everyone listening, that's still in college. Put in the subject line, fill in the blank of your school blank student and then say something about yourself in that. That's going to get their attention. And I'm telling you, playing the student card is huge, like people want to help students and that's a big reason why, among others, why I'm really upset about graduating, because now I'm like, oh, what should be in my subject line to get their attention. So I know I'm not fully giving specific advice about how to get in touch with people, but I would say that it really just stems back to that confidence thing and realizing that at the end of the day you're reaching out to a person, it's not some like robot, it's not some figure that you've like made up in your head, it's just another person, even if they're like a CEO of a billion dollar person, at the end of the day it's human connection. So use that.
Speaker 1:I think that's great advice and even I was told if you send an email from your student email, like them just seeing, like at uncedu or at uvaedu, like at the end of your email, that'll also make them you know, see the email and potentially want to respond to you. So thank you so much. You basically also answered the last signature question that I have, which is one piece of advice that you give Gen Z to go out and diversify themselves and you ending with that last quote I think was amazing. But do you have anything else that you want to add to it? When you say diversify themselves.
Speaker 2:Can you clarify, like what you mean there so I can make sure?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so basically diversifying themselves is like expanding themselves, exploring new things, getting themselves involved in multiple areas Like what advice do you have for them? Basically, just be the best versions. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, this is just what comes to mind first. I don't know, I'm sure I'll think about this in like five minutes and think of something else. Comes to mind first. I don't know, I'm sure I'll think about this in like five minutes and think of something else. But I'm just really passionate about the fact that you're going to attract the best people in your life the moment that you kind of start fully acting like your authentic self. And that definitely obviously starts with like understanding yourself and reflecting.
Speaker 2:But I think a lot of people do have an understanding of themselves but they're trying to fit into a mold or fit into something that they're not and you're never like, even when it comes to friendships or mentors or anything else. You're never really going to have those people that like, truly, truly like, do make you feel great and fill your cup and whatever else, if you're not acting your most authentic self. And I think once you start attracting those people, that kind of just spills into all the other parts of your life and kind of does help you I don't know create experiences for find opportunities, because the people that kind of like quote unquote should be in your life are just always going to be elevating you and I'm just someone that's so passionate about the fact that, like, the right relationships are something that's almost like overlooked a lot and just pour into everything else. So that's kind of on the top of my mind. So I don't know if that's like a biased answer, but yeah, that's just no, I love that.
Speaker 1:I think that's such great advice and that's something that we've been talking about lately, or even just one of my goals for the new year is just to be more intentional and always show up as my authentic self, because you never know like the best version of yourself is what you want to put out there, and you know what you give out is also what you'll attract back. I love that and thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. You dropped some golden nuggets. I loved hearing your story and I can't wait to see Rooted continue to grow and that yet will be a present once you know you keep going, and I can't wait to see what else you do and how you flourish. Thank you everyone to listening to Diversify Her podcast. I'll be sure to link Marley's podcast as well, so you guys can go listen and check her out and be sure to subscribe to her as well. Thank you all for listening and I'll catch you next time on Diversify Her.