MARK'S: Proudly made for those that love America, stand by their families, and never settle.
- KLS
- 46 minutes ago
- 13 min read
For the 259th feature of our "Together Talks" campaign, we collaborated with MARK'S and Founder, Mark Samuel. At Mark`s, we believe in keeping things simple—just like the good old days. No seed oils. No junk. Just real, quality ingredients that you can trust. Our chips are made with 100% avocado oil and crafted for people who work hard, raise strong families, and stand for something bigger than themselves.
As a proud father of two, a coach, and someone who cares deeply about faith, fitness, and food, I created this brand because I was tired of seeing good people stuck with bad options. We deserve snacks that taste incredible without compromising our health.
So grab a bag, enjoy every crunchy bite, and know that you’re fueling up with something as strong and honest as the values we hold dear.
"Together Talks" feature 259: MARK's presented by KLS - Your Trusted Shipping Solutions In The USA
What separates you from your competition? What have been the biggest challenges? Goals for upcoming year + Next phase of the company?
What have you learned since becoming an entrepreneur? What aspect of entrepreneurship do you appreciate the most? Share a decision that you made that was detrimental? Do you have a moment that brings you the most joy?
Story of how it was created?
MARK's was founded in the middle of 2025. We launched it.
I would say inception is for a concept idea, putting a sort of pen to paper was earlier in the year.
But true sales and distribution into market occurred in the middle of last year, 2025.
What separates you from your competition?
Wildly competitive, but as I always say, every category is competitive. You know, I actually went into this specific category because of how busy it is and how much consumers adopt this easily.
So basically, I look at, are these in everyone’s cabinet, you know, or in their kitchen today?
And the answer is yes. So whether it’s a tortilla chip or a potato chip or a kettle chip, everybody snacks on them.
And that was what was attractive. I didn’t really want to have to do an educational piece to this product line.
And with that said, the position for the brand being seed oil-free and using avocado oil is what’s going to separate us in the crowd.
At least for now, again, there have been seed oil-free potato and/or kettle chips before, but there’s really only a handful of us doing it.
What have been the biggest challenges?
I wouldn’t say there have been any challenges yet, or at least ones that I hadn’t seen before. I was lucky I had some experience with a different snack brand for about eight years prior to this.
Again, you’re never going to duck everything that comes your way. But in this particular case, I had sort of a roadmap that I wanted to follow. And we’ve been doing that.
So I wouldn’t say that there have been any challenges that I hadn’t seen or aren’t seeing coming our way.
Goals for upcoming year + Next phase of the company?
We just, funny enough, I’m posting today. We’re adding two more flavors. So we’ll have five flavors across our family-size bag, our five-ounce bag, which basically puts us in the cap.
Okay, wow, these guys, you know, they put out their three top flavors, of course. They want to go test the market, they want to see if they have some viability.
And now we’re saying, okay, we do have some viability. And here are a couple of new flavors that we think you’re going to love.
That gives us five facings, of course. And it also basically says, you know, sort of to the rest of the market, like, wow, these guys are going to come into the kettle chip arena.
And this is who they are. This is what they represent. This is what the brand talks about. And, you know, we’re going to go compete.
So that’s one.
Two is, we’re just going to continue to build out our DSD network. We have just crossed into our 22nd state, which is, you know, within 10 months, it’s a nice feat.
But we want to continue to build that. So we’re building out this DSD network. We have not activated the UNFI and KeHEs of the world yet.
And again, that’s been on purpose. That’s our roadmap, which I was referring to before. We just had a specific way that we wanted to build this out.
Of course, we have Amazon. And then we are talking to a couple majors. So there are a couple majors that I’d like to partner with.
We’ve sort of had those meetings. We’ll see what comes of it. And then we’re just going to slowly build.
There’s no rush with this. And so I think that’s sort of the positioning and roadmap that we’re looking to build out for the next year.
What were your concerns to transition to starting your own business?
I wasn’t really interested in going back into building a brand in food and beverage. The last eight years was just a wild ride.
And I’m very transparent, and I talk openly about this specific business that we’re in. It’s just wildly difficult to create any success, and whatever that may mean to somebody.
So success is whether or not you have to raise money, don’t raise money, just building out a viable brand in a business that sees some sort of access to profits or something that basically provides a foundation to the business over time.
That’s one.
Two is this idea or this dream that you built this asset so well and established such a brand with the consumer that somebody else thinks that it has value, right?
I just say, you know, somebody else thinks that the asset has value enough that they want to acquire it.
Like, those two things are very, very difficult. It’s so—the percentage of those that make it to either of those is wildly small.
So I know that sounds sort of counterintuitive to where I’m going with this, but basically I didn’t think it was necessarily a great idea to do this.
However, I said to myself, if I was going to do it, what would it look like? And I sort of just started penciling that out.
And basically what you’re seeing today is what it was.
What got me over the hump was, okay, if I was going to give it a go, it’d have to be in a massive category.
I don’t want to educate necessarily, but there’s going to be a health aspect to it, right, a health position.
And then it’s going to be wildly personal. So the latter is probably the most important as far as the moat.
Like, what is the moat of these businesses today? It has to have some sort of emotional connection because products are products. They’re being either knocked off or just duplicated.
And you see them on shelf right next to the other guys, some of which are just the actual retailers that are just private label and the like.
But you need something that screams out to a consumer some sort of attraction that will, you know, give them some sense of reason to buy beyond, you know, sort of price tag and this, that, and the other.
So that was it.
The latter was like, I’m going to be able to speak on this brand the way that I speak with everybody, have no filter, and it’s either going to resonate with folks or it won’t.
And that’s it. That’s what got me to where we are today.
And I’m now much more comfortable with what’s happening and seeing how it’s rolling out, and I feel good about it.
What have you learned since becoming an entrepreneur?
I would say that the structure of getting in front of the different retailers is more the same. The last handful of years, I started to see what was occurring with folks trading desks.
You hear about this often. At retailers, there are folks who are on the buying desk, and then all of a sudden you’re sort of in front of them for some bit, and the next thing you know, they’re moving desks.
It doesn’t make for a very efficient model for yourself because you have to start over and build a new relationship.
The theme is patience.
And where I’m going with that is, like, if you wanted to get into Whole Foods today, again, that’s not even on our radar right now.
Like, I don’t even know when the line review is because it’s not part of our plan, right? But I’m just going to give the big guess.
Like, you’re doing a line review, you know, maybe in the coming months to maybe get on shelf in, like, 18 months. You get it.
And so, you know, if you miss, still think about that. So if you miss or avoid or decline the line review now, what does that mean once you miss it?
Well, it means you aren’t potentially going to see that opportunity for a long, long time.
Now, there are these caveats, and I see it happen all the time.
There are these folks who have been in the business for a very long time, and they’re wildly well-connected. They have time. They’re absolutely—they’re there, and they can get cut in.
Usually it’s money. You know, they got a ton of money, or their venture folks are attached to the other venture folks and attached to the execs who did this, that, and the other.
Like, you know, it’s not a bad thing. It’s the world we live in. It’s the who-you-know scenario.
But for the majority of folks, you know, it’s just long, long windows.
And I just leave that out there for folks just to recognize: patience is in this game.
And, you know, you don’t really need to rush anything because there are plenty of other opportunities that are much lower hanging for you anyway.
I mean, I talk about the capital requirements. I’ve been saying that now for a long time, but I still think it needs to be at the forefront.
It’s just wildly expensive. And the capital that you need if you’re looking to scale the business, right? Again, what do you know?
I’m super capital efficient, and I’m not really listening to a lot of that. It’s just not true.
And if you want to be at the farmer’s market, you can be, which is not a big deal either, right?
You know, I say that’s great, too, whether it’s to get some product-market fit or just to have a small business where you actually could probably turn it.
You know, you buy enough inventory, you make enough inventory for yourself, it’s all in your hands or in your car or whatever, and then you put it on top of the table and you sell it to folks, you know, for two times what you made it for, right?
Like, that’s great. And then, you know, you do it again.
But if you’re looking to scale the business, which even when most talk, they say that they may not want to, but the reality is that’s what they ultimately want.
You know, “I want to be in 5,000 stores,” and okay, you know, and I’m going to, okay, great.
Well, you’re going to need millions of dollars.
And then somebody’s going like, “Well, yeah, right. I’m going to do it for—”
No, no, no. You will need millions of dollars.
And that scares some folks. It doesn’t for others who maybe understand it or have been doing this or, you know, come to the reality of what it is that we do.
It’s just wildly capital intensive. And so you just need to be prepared for that.
What aspect of entrepreneurship do you appreciate the most?
The purpose piece.
I just think that’s a life piece, right? You got to have some purpose in life to get up and want to do things, right? Again, it could be being a stay-at-home parent. I think that’s great. It’s a beautiful, it’s a wonderful, beautiful purpose. And so that’s why I agree. You’re asking the questions specifically during entrepreneurship. I just think that has to be part of it.
And so I always describe this as I’m selling kettle chips, in this particular case seed oil-free, very clean-label snacks, because it allows me to have a platform to get in front of a lot of people. And then somebody’s like, “Well, what does that mean?”
Well, that means what I’m doing even with you right now. You would never have called me to say, “Hey, I want to just talk to you and ask you some questions about what you’ve been doing at MARK'S.” Okay, good. Now let me talk to you about what’s really important to me.
What’s really important to me is I want to talk about health and wellness. I want to say things that are going to really turn people on their head, is where I say something like, “I’d prefer you to eat less snacks.” And somebody says, “What the? What’s this guy doing, trying to kill the business?”
No, no. It allows me to give you something of which I know you and your family were probably going to eat anyway. So let me give you a fantastic product, right? So again, number one, it’s got to be top tier in its category. We’re the best, in my opinion. Subjective in some ways, but sometimes it’s objective if you’re just being totally honest. We have the best kettle chip on the market right now. That’s just me going all out and saying it. I don’t care if it’s seed oil-free or not. Just head-to-head, we have the best.
Two is we’re in a lot of folks’ cabinets, right, or kitchens. And I just mean us as meaning this platform of chips, Tortilla, kettle, potato. Now I have an audience I can speak to because people who are snacking are going to want to listen. And I could say, “Hey, I would prefer you to do this rule that I’ve been living for 30-plus years.” One is sleep a lot. Get really good sleep, too. I want you to eat well. What does that mean? I want you on this 80/20 rule that I really love. That means eat whole foods, whole, nutrient-dense, single-ingredient foods 80% of the time. Twenty percent, you can, with moderation, eat fun stuff. Eat the stuff that you think is fun, of which that could be snacking. That could be a single scoop of ice cream. That could be that slice of pizza. That could be the burger at In-N-Out. I ate a burger last night at In-N-Out, right?
Then I talk about exercise, and I’m a doer. People can see me. I live in the gym. I could go into 10 other things, like don’t drink booze, hydrate, get outside. Like, I’m taking this on a call outside. I’m walking.
To be a transparent founder, of which there aren’t very many—I’m just being fair, right? Most people are selling something. And this is allowing me an opportunity. Maybe I’m touching one person. Maybe I’m touching 10. Maybe 100 on some days.
Share a decision that you made that was detrimental?
I’d rather point that one to my previous venture. This one’s too fresh, and of course there are always little mistakes that you make along the way, but we haven’t done anything like where I’m regretting or I have to try to retract something, which is good. It’s a godsend thus far.
Again, you need all types of things for this thing to work—your luck, timing, God, everything. So in my previous venture, I made a packaging change, like just a real, all-in, total packaging change across the board. I don’t even know if I’d consider it being off-brand per se, but it was very impactful and not necessarily in a good way. And that was—it wasn’t off the cuff, like, “We’re doing this right now. Here’s what I want to see.” And we’re going to do it across the board in the next 90 days. But it was pretty darn close to that, and I would not suggest that.
It can’t be like the gut read of the founder, which happens all the time, because most of us just can’t get out of our own way. It’s for 10 different reasons. One is ego, usually. You can’t be wrong and all that. The reality is this is all about the customer, and everything from the product, to the look, to the feel, to everything. This is all about the customer.
And so you may have an idea, or a thought, to something specific—in this case, to let’s say packaging, look, feel, design—and it’s just wrong.
I got one just for fun, since you’re talking about big-scale stuff. It was always a good reference point. Tropicana had done that. It was a big to-do. It was some years ago. They had just swapped their packaging. It was odd. Remember, because in a company that size, you’re talking about multiple people in a boardroom, these amazing marketing executives and VPs. No, there are multiple people that have to sign this thing off. Well, that’s just crazy. They had multiple people, you know, approve this thing, right?
Which is kind of wild. Anyway, there’s just more of a reference point.
Do you have a moment that brings you the most joy?
We just got off these Costco roadshows recently. We had a few here in the Bay Area, and we killed it. So those were really fun. And it’s exciting to see the response from consumers, you know, just because you’re doing it. You know, seeing us in the store and seeing reactions of customers right in front of you.
Amazon is great. You get the reviews. Great. We have a 4.5 review. That means 100 people are saying, okay, that’s great. You need all that.
But, like, if you’ve ever seen 1,000 people in front of you in a day—in one single day, 1,000 people—and you’re seeing 700 verbal reactions, of which, by the way, even if I’m standing there, which I was, they didn’t connect the dots that my face, that’s me.
You know, they’d see the face. It would take them a few—it would take them a minute. They’d be like, “That’s you, right?” But they’d already said it. They’d already said out loud what they thought.
And that’s pretty freaking amazing. When you get a lot of people saying, “This is the best barbecue chip I’ve ever had,” you’re like, “Dude, I think I got something here.” That’s one.
The second one, though, which is to me more important, I’ve got this small little mighty team, and I’m pretty pumped about it because I just really like these people. I’m more about that. I just like really good folks, and it’s just really cool to see that they’re not just on board, but, we’re doing this together. Because this isn’t my thing. I just get to be called—I’m a founder. It’s like, whatever, dude. I’m just doing this thing with folks.
And yes, my name’s on it. I’m not going to push away the obvious. My name’s on it. My face is on this. But this isn’t—it’s not about me. This is about building something with really great people for great people. It sounds kind of—I just heard myself say it out loud. It sounds literally a little cliché and kind of silly, but it just feels right for me to say that.
Piece of Advice
Health is priority.
You’ll hear me always weave in the health piece. When I’m talking about this, and this platform, and my purpose, it’s health. So it’s very simple.
Health is the number one most important thing that you have to focus on in your life.
And it should be prioritized over everything and everybody. Everything and everybody.
So somebody’s like, “Whoa, what do you mean?”
I got kids and I got my wife.
Okay, good. Me too, right?
My personal health is more important and prioritized over everything and everybody.
And here’s why.
If I do not have that as my core foundational focus every single day, at least in my case, to start my day With a workout, and making sure I’m eating well during the day and the like.
If I’m not at my best, how could I be my best for everybody else?
That is key and something that I will say forever.
Community Callout
Lance Luegers - Head of Sales
In Closing
KLS wants to thank MARK'S and Founder, Mark Samuel, for today's "Together Talks" feature. Follow along for their journey with their social handles below!
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