Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in food and beverage but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Linda Alvarez, Co-Founder, and CEO of Levelle Inc., located in Poughkeepsie, NY, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

Levelle is a sports food company empowering female athletes with fuel formulated for their physiology. Women make up over 40% of sports participants, yet only 2.5% of sports nutrition products “target” them. Instead, products are designed based on men’s physiology and do not meet women’s unique physiologic and metabolic needs throughout physical activity.

Levelle’s products are innovatively tailored to the female metabolism. We use low-glycemic, plant ingredients to deliver an all-natural, sustained release of energy. At Levelle’s core are the tenets of empowerment and collaboration. We are focused on how the female body performs, not how it looks. Levelle empowers customers to consider themselves athletes and respect their bodies. We fuel women to run the world.

Tell us about yourself

I never set out to be an entrepreneur, my co-founder and I didn’t find Levelle because we had a product we wanted to sell. Rather, we found a problem we were driven to solve. The sports nutrition industry has failed women. Products and marketing heavily favor men, and when attention does turn to women, the focus is on skinniness and sexiness. Related research has failed women, with only 3% of sports performance and 36% of sports medicine studies including female participants. Before starting Levelle, my co-founder and I spoke to over 100 endurance athletes. We heard an undeniable theme of physical pain in female athletes in response to current sports nutrition products. What was most upsetting was that so many of the women we spoke to felt as though their bodies were the problem rather than products on the market.

My co-founder and I were compelled to find a solution. Using my clinical experience and background in nutrition (as well as a serious hobby in cooking and baking), we dug into the research and spent a lot of time in the kitchen to make something not only healthy for all women but also super delicious!

As a founder and the CEO of Levelle, I have found an intersection of my passions – science and food, and the causes I champion – health equity and female empowerment. In such a time of uncertainty, working on Levelle allows me to channel the change I hope to see in the world, a world that embraces and values diversity and equality.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

We have received various formal recognitions from the food industry and entrepreneurship community. The most exciting included receiving the Best Companies Award at the Food 2.0 Conference and featuring in Poets & Quants’ Most Disruptive MBA Startups 2021. However, while it is amazing to be recognized by our peers, we are most proud of the response we have received from potential customers, both athletes, and non-athletes. Most recently, we exhibited at a food industry conference, and the response was humbling. Numerous women and a handful of men actually came up to thank us for what we were doing: for listening to women and addressing their needs, for prioritizing women’s health and physiology, and for promoting a message of empowerment, wellness, and encouragement.

Women expressed to us their appreciation for finally being seen, heard, and acknowledged. Before starting Levelle, our team didn’t have any experience in the food and beverage industry, so everything we have done so far has been a challenge, simply by virtue of where we started. But our determination and perseverance have already paid off. It has been a privilege to watch people nod their heads when they hear our story and mission, to hear runners say, “Oh my gosh, you’re totally right, I’ve absolutely experienced that,” and to have complete strangers offer to help in any way they can.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

When starting a business, there are times you will feel siloed. However, it is important to remember you are never alone within the entrepreneurship community. There are so many resources, networking groups, and workshops that can help you along your entrepreneurial journey.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Find a problem and base your business on creating the solution to that problem.
  2. Create a support network that includes a mix of different areas of expertise and industry. Having a diverse network can help you problem solve and strategize challenges that can arise throughout your entrepreneurial journey.
  3. Be an active listener: listen to your team, your advisors, and, most importantly, your customers. Use that information to guide your strategy, whether it be deciding your next product or planning your growth and scale.

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

Currently, Levelle is preparing for a commercial launch of our first line of products, our Energy Purées! We will be launching later this year and are so excited to share Levelle with all of you!

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.levellenutrition.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LevelleNutrition
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/levellenutrition/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/levelle/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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