Morning Lover: Vegan superfood supplement that supplies a delicious blend of essentials every body needs.
For the 272nd feature of our "Together Talks" campaign, we collaborated with Morning Lover and Founder, Cara Wenig. Morning Lover was born out of necessity. Those who can’t drink ‘normal’ morning beverages should be able to have access to something just as satisfying.
But we wanted more. Morning Lover is full of antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties as well as cognitive improvement factors, and mood and clean energy boosters. Morning Lover isn’t just for people who NEED a healthy alternative, it’s also for anyone who wants one, but doesn’t want to sacrifice taste.
"Together Talks" feature 272: Morning Lover presented by KLS - Your Trusted Shipping Solutions In The USA
What separates you from your competition? What have been the biggest challenges? What were your concerns to transition to starting your own business?
When did you start going to farmers markets? What aspect of entrepreneurship do you appreciate the most? Share a decision that you made that was detrimental? What is your why?
Story of how it was created?
Morning Lover was born out of necessity for myself. I was diagnosed with a couple of autoimmune conditions after undergoing emergency heart surgery. During that time, I realized I had been self-medicating in a few different ways throughout my life. One thing I hadn't figured out, though, was my morning drink.
When I was 26, I started experiencing an eye twitch and decided to quit coffee. From there, I spent the next 10 years cycling through different alternatives, including decaf, coffee, green tea, and just about anything else being marketed toward people looking for an alternative. None of it worked for me. Some options hurt my stomach, others didn't taste good, and overall, they just weren't satisfying. Eventually, I started looking into alternatives because there are so many coffee alternatives available today.
Frankly, I don't think many of them are crafted with taste as the priority. I think they're crafted for marketability. There are certainly different flavors available, but I'm a whole-food eater, and I love to cook and bake. I wanted something that was healthy and good for me, something I could enjoy to start my day.
I sometimes joke that I wanted that Folgers moment, which probably dates me, but I wanted the feeling of "the best part of waking up." I was drinking things that were hurting my day instead of helping it. That's how Morning Lover was born: out of my own health journey and a desire to give people who love coffee something with better energy, made from whole foods, but still full-bodied and delicious. I wanted something crafted specifically for a rich, craveable flavor.
What separates you from your competition?
I think it's the combination of whole foods and taste. We've received feedback through market research, but I also put a lot of thought into crafting a flavor that delivers the experience people expect when they drink coffee.
When you have coffee, there's the ritual of making it, which we're all familiar with. You can create a ritual around almost anything, but coffee is truly a global phenomenon. It's something we love. I sometimes say, "Pro-choice, know your drugs." We love coffee; coffee just doesn't always love me.
When you drink coffee, there's the ritual of making it, but there's also the aroma and the flavor. It's not just a bitter taste. You experience the flavor immediately, and then it lands on the back of your tongue and in the back of your mouth. You can still taste it even after you've taken a sip. We all know what coffee breath is. When you enjoy something, that flavor lingers, and it makes you want to go back for another sip.
When I crafted this recipe, I intuitively wanted to recreate that experience. I wanted something really fulfilling. I almost joke that it's like having a Bloody Mary as a meal. Our 11 ingredients feel like a meal in themselves, which is also beneficial because of the digestive blend. You can have it first thing in the morning, and for most people, it isn't hard on the stomach.
What you experience is the aroma first, followed by the cacao as the initial flavor. Then you get the earthiness of the matcha, lion's mane, and turmeric, before it finishes with the spices. A lot of people feel that the hot version reminds them of something familiar, and I think that's because of the flavors that land on their tongue at the end.
Ultimately, I wanted that same repeatable, full-bodied experience we find so satisfying with coffee. Something rich and fulfilling that brings you back for more. So, what really separates us is the taste, the care and craftsmanship behind the recipe, and the fact that it's made entirely from whole foods.
What have been the biggest challenges?
I think you could name a thousand challenges. One of the first things is getting to know yourself and understanding what you're good at and what you're not good at. You don't have to know everything right away, but you do have to recognize where your strengths and weaknesses are.
For example, I hate social media marketing. I'm part of a marketing club, and I'm getting better at it, but it's something you have to do when you're running a business. I can't wait until the day I can hand that responsibility off to someone else. It's a constant struggle because I genuinely don't enjoy it. I have to keep doing it, even though it's not something I naturally gravitate toward.
I'm also a people person. I've always worked well with people, and I used to work in sales. I enjoy interacting with people, understanding their feelings, why they do things, and the behavioral science behind their decisions. I'm not naturally a marketing data and analytics person. Transitioning that part of my brain into business mode has been challenging because it doesn't come as naturally to me. I think it really depends on the individual, but for me, that has been a big challenge.
Another challenge is that I never intended to start a business. That, in itself, has been its own experience, although it's not something I'm upset about. I originally made this product for myself because I needed it. Then came that classic story where your friends and family try it and say, "Wow, this is amazing." I thought, maybe I'll sell it.
Even then, I wasn't necessarily thinking this was something I would do for the next several years. It probably took about a year before I realized I was actually going to build a business around it. That's part of why we're relaunching now, with a new website, new packaging, and a much more thoughtful and intentional approach to the business overall. We're approaching both the front end and back end differently.
What were your concerns to transition to starting your own business?
Some of that comes from my personal background, which is in sales. In sales, things are never really finished. You never complete a project and reach a point where there's nothing left to do. There's always something more. Hopefully, you have someone besides you telling you that you're doing a good job, but otherwise, you just have to keep going.
During that first year, I was mostly thinking about what was directly in front of me rather than planning too far down the line. I built a website within the first four months, but I wasn't approaching it the way you might hear about other businesses, with fundraising, a formal business plan, and all the traditional steps involved in setting up a company. I was almost having fun with it and trying to see whether people enjoyed the product.
One of the biggest lessons I've learned, and something that ties into this question, is that I have to work smarter, not harder. That's especially important because I'm a solo founder. I can work incredibly hard. I'm a hustler. I've physically spent entire weekends at markets, which is still a major place where we make money. But you have to develop better plans than simply working harder. No one can do this alone, especially when you're working with a physical product.
There are only 24 hours in a day, and you have a limited amount of energy. Add family, a mortgage, or any other personal responsibilities, and it becomes even more challenging. I'm still learning, and I think we're all continuing to learn as entrepreneurs.
I was just talking with a mentor and fellow founder earlier today who recently exited her company. She mentioned listening to the people behind brands like Poppy and Bloom and looking at how they've grown. The important thing to remember is that where they are today isn't where they were when they started. Things change, businesses evolve, and we all have to continue growing and learning.
I'm not someone who wants to drive myself crazy trying to keep up with every new trend or constantly chase algorithms. Of course, I think about how to make sure we're showing up and being visible, but at the end of the day, we have to serve the customer who's actually out there right now.
For us, the social media landscape is incredibly crowded. There's so much happening with Meta ads, Google ads, TikTok, and everything else. One way I'm continuously working through that challenge is by becoming more disciplined about testing, understanding our analytics, benchmarking our performance, and bringing everything together into a more structured approach.
We haven't done paid advertising yet, which I think is both a good and a bad thing. We've made it this far without it, but I initially avoided spending money on ads because I wanted to wait until after the relaunch. Now that we're here, developing a strategy around paid advertising is something we're working toward.
I'm also part of a group called Strong Brand Social, which has been helpful. Having a repeatable system is important. I was actually on a call with them this morning discussing how to approach social media as a business rather than treating it as something entirely personal.
Social media is supposed to be personal and fun, but I've realized we can't approach it that way all the time. It's too difficult to constantly accommodate your audience while trying to be fun, cute, and cool. That kind of personality can come through in founder behind-the-scenes content, which I love creating, but the overall approach needs to be more structured and intentional. That's something I've really wanted to develop as we've grown the business.
What have you learned since becoming an entrepreneur?
I sometimes go back to social media when thinking about this because of my background in service and sales. So much of that work was about relationships, and I felt I was really good at building them. What's interesting about selling a product, though, is that you learn some things that might seem obvious but are hopefully helpful for people who are just starting out.
One of the biggest lessons I've learned is that when you launch a business, you should expect zero purchases from your friends, family, and personal network, even if you have 300 friends or 300 people in your professional circle who have known you for years.
Just because someone is your friend or family member, or tells you they love your product and support your business, doesn't mean they're going to make a purchase. That was a really big lesson for me early on.
People were incredibly excited when we launched the website and the product. I had a very large personal network because I came from a business that was highly social, so there was a lot of enthusiasm and encouragement. However, very few people actually purchased.
It got to the point where, about a year later, I started calling people out in the comments when they would say they couldn't wait to try the product, even though I knew they had never purchased it. They were friends, so I wasn't trying to be unkind. I would simply point out that they had never actually bought anything. I would tell them that if they didn't want to purchase it, that was fine, but I also wanted them to understand that there was a real person behind the business.
People sometimes forget that there's an individual behind a brand. As entrepreneurs, we have to develop thick skin, but I think it's also important to understand what support really means. Encouragement and excitement are wonderful, but they aren't necessarily the same thing as supporting a business through a purchase.
When did you start going to farmers markets?
It was actually the opposite of what you might expect. I started going to farmers markets before I launched the website. I began selling at markets in May 2024 and launched the website in September 2024.
I already had customers asking whether they could have the product shipped, so I started shipping products with the old labels before the website was even live. I had Shopify set up, and I realized I could fulfill those orders, so I started doing that.
That's actually one of the reasons I still participate in farmers markets. As I move toward paid advertising and work on becoming successful with that channel, I also want to continue building my community locally. More importantly, the markets are where so many of my subscribers come from. I have subscribers all over the country, and a lot of those relationships started at my market table.
The feedback has also been incredibly valuable. One potential downside, if you want to call it that, is that I receive such consistently positive feedback that it hasn't necessarily pushed me to make major changes to the product. I'm excited about launching new products, but I'm really proud of this first signature product because the feedback has been around 90% positive.
That's true even when someone doesn't necessarily make another purchase. Of course, that can have more to do with email marketing, follow-up, or other things happening on the business side. Sometimes people may genuinely intend to purchase again but simply don't get around to it. We all do that as consumers, often without even realizing it.
What aspect of entrepreneurship do you appreciate the most?
It's nice to sell something that isn't yourself. I think that's part of why social media can be so challenging. Service-based businesses are incredibly difficult because you're selling your own services. You have to be good at what you do, but you also have to be someone people want to work with.
Even likability plays a role, regardless of what type of service you're providing. Someone has to want to work with you, or you have to be so exceptional at your job that people don't care about anything else. We're in an age where likability is still a pretty big factor.
With a product-based business, I'm not constantly selling myself as the main offering. I still feel like I'm selling myself quite a bit, but it's not the number one thing. Morning Lover is the number one thing. It's nice to have a product that I can lean on and talk about, rather than always having to make myself the product.
Share a decision that you made that was detrimental?
One example is hiring people to help with social media. I've learned a lot from those experiences, but I think the bigger lesson connects to something I've spent money on and learned from along the way.
When you're the boss, there's a reality that you have to understand. I was listening to a podcast featuring Emma Grede, where they discussed the importance of knowing enough about every part of your business. You can't realistically be the master of everything, but you do need to understand enough to know what you're looking for when you hire someone, delegate responsibilities, or trust an outside expert.
You have to know enough to recognize when something isn't working and be able to say, "You're not giving me what I asked for, and I'm not getting what I need." That's difficult when you're also expected to be an expert in everything.
I experienced some of that with social media, but it happened even more with design. I come from a high-end advertising background, so my taste level is very high, but I'm not a good designer myself. I can't necessarily provide specific design examples or create what I'm envisioning. I can describe the feeling, the direction, and what I want something to communicate, but translating that into an actual design can be challenging.
I've spent a lot of money trying to find the right people for design work. I don't necessarily want to call it wasted money because I think we all spend money on things we learn from, even when they don't turn out to be successful investments. However, I've probably spent more than I needed to while trying to find the right people, partly because I wasn't acting like the boss enough or managing the process as tightly as I should have.
That was a huge lesson for me: you have to run a tight ship. People aren't necessarily going to take advantage of you, but at the end of the day, it's not their business. They're going to do what they think is right, based on their own understanding and experience. It's your responsibility to make sure they're delivering what the business actually needs.
So, to give an overarching answer, social media was one smaller example, but design was the bigger learning experience for me.
What is your why?
It's funny because this really started about two and a half years ago, and maybe even before that, since I initially created the product for myself. My husband was always concerned that I might miss the larger cultural phenomenon surrounding what I was making.
We can call it a coffee alternative, but it's also a coffee additive. You can put it in your coffee, which is another fun and different way to use it.
What's remained true throughout this process, and what really hasn't changed, is my belief in whole foods. Maybe that's because culture takes time to evolve, but I participate in SPINS calls, listen to the data, and pay attention to what people are saying. Whole foods are still valuable, and I think selling something that's actually made from real food is a differentiator in itself.
There are a lot of people who genuinely care about that. I'm one of them. When people come up to me at farmers markets and ask where I source my ingredients, I want to be able to tell them. I'll share information about the COAs and anything else I know about the ingredients. If there's something I don't know, I'll be honest about that, too.
I want people to understand that I'm trying to sell them a genuinely good product. It's small-batch, made with real ingredients, and something they could honestly make themselves at home. It's essentially a homemade product. I'm excited about getting something that's rooted in that kind of authenticity and feels tangible, almost nostalgic, into people's hands.
I also think we talk about energy a lot in marketing. We focus on having more energy, being productive, and keeping our energy levels up. But energy naturally goes up and down. That's what energy does. It's not always supposed to be up.
I've learned so much from the customers who come to my table. Many of them tell me they love their coffee, but just like me, coffee doesn't always love them back. It hurts their stomach or gives them anxiety. I think coffee is beautiful, and I don't want people to feel like they have to give it up if they don't want to.
I tell people they can try Morning Lover first thing in the morning or have it as a second cup in the afternoon. If they want something that still feels good, still feels like a treat, and tastes delicious, that's what we've worked to create. We crafted it specifically for that flavor and full-bodied experience, so people can enjoy something for themselves without necessarily giving their bodies more of the things that might be hurting them.
My bigger vision goes beyond the product itself. Ultimately, I want people to become more in touch with themselves and their bodies and to understand what works for them. That's also why we don't want to position ourselves as anti-coffee. Morning Lover can be enjoyed instead of coffee or added to your coffee. We don't need to yell at anyone or tell them they have to give something up. We want people to be happy while also finding ways to take care of themselves.
Do you have a moment that brings you the most joy?
Oh, boy. The wins can be hard to recognize sometimes. I try to write them down because, as an entrepreneur, it can feel like you're losing all the time. That's especially true as a solo founder. There's so much on my plate that I often find myself wondering whether I'll actually get everything done. I just have to see how the day goes.
I think one of the things that brings me the most joy right now is getting to this point with our new brand and packaging. I can show you the new bag, and hopefully it will be live by the time we launch. This has taken so much work, and I'm exhausted. I'll say something I'm probably not supposed to say out loud, but as we're getting ready to relaunch, there are moments when I feel ready to quit.
I'm being honest about that. But then there's another part of me that says, "All right, Cara, keep moving. Just keep going."
I say that because it's taken so much to get here. You don't fully understand what goes into something like this unless you've experienced it yourself. You're trying to make money, handle marketing, work on design, manage a relaunch, listen to your customers, and do everything else that comes with running a business. At the same time, you're still trying to be a nice, happy person for everyone around you. You want to have friends, spend time with your husband, take care of your dog, and maintain some kind of personal life. It's a lot to manage.
So, I am proud of where we've gotten with the product and the fact that we've made it to this relaunch. I'm also proud of how much I've grown personally. For a long time, when I walked into certain rooms, I felt like I didn't know anything. I'm not super young, and I have experience, but sometimes it's difficult to recognize what you know when you're surrounded by people who are considered experts.
Now, the more rooms I walk into, the more I realize that I know the people, understand what they're talking about, and recognize the things being discussed. I may not be at the same level as some of them yet, but I understand the conversations and the business. I'm really proud of all the work I've put into listening, learning, and making space to understand the business itself.
The only reason I even started writing down my wins was because I listened to an angel investor on a podcast talking about quarterly investor emails. They mentioned that you should keep track of your wins, challenges, needs, asks, and thanks. I remember thinking, "Okay, I better get good at that." It turned out to be a really helpful practice.
Piece of Advice
There's something in what you said earlier that I've actually been talking about with someone else today: make sure you're choosing what you want to do every day.
That doesn't mean you're going to enjoy every day. It certainly doesn't mean things will always be easy or happy just because you chose this path. But I think it's important to keep asking yourself whether this is what you actually want to be doing.
I went to acting school, so I'm familiar with the idea of having blind faith in something. There's that mentality of, "I'm going to make it." I'm going to build the business that does $500 million in five years or seven years. I'm going to be the actor who wins an Academy Award. Whatever the goal is, there's a certain amount of blind faith involved.
I'm probably a little too rational for that approach. Instead, I find it much more helpful to ask myself, "Is this what I want to be doing?"
The near-death experiences I've had, which I sometimes refer to as my hospital experiences, have really helped me put that into perspective. They've reminded me that life is short and made me think more carefully about whether I'm making the right choices for myself.
Even on the days when I don't necessarily want to be doing the work, I'm still happy that I have this product. I genuinely believe in it. I believe in whole foods, and I believe in giving people something good to put in their bodies that also tastes good. I don't think there's anything bad about that. I also drink it every day, and I love it.
Making that choice for myself every day helps me take another step forward. I also think it's important to recognize the really small wins. Every founder knows this, but when one customer writes a positive review or someone comes up to your table and tells you how much they love your product, hold on to that.
Of course, if 90% of people are telling you something isn't working, you need to listen to that feedback. But you also have to recognize the positive things. It's similar to what I mentioned earlier about sales and relationships. You have to accept the occasional "good job" wherever you can get it.
That's especially important as a solo founder. Even if you have people around you, you're still on your own a lot of the time. Those small moments of encouragement can make a real difference, so don't overlook them.
Promo code
Purchase from their site, Morning Lover, and use promo code below:
KLS15 -> 15% off!
Community Callout
I’d love to thank Julie Scherr, Vanessa Royle, Michelle Wilton, Carmen Li, Michelle Yao, Lindsey McMahon, Dylign, Louisa Cartwright, Wendelin von Schroder, Konstantin von Schroder and all the support from other friends, family and founders along the way who got me across the line to launch and I know will keep cheering Morning Lover on as we move forward.
In Closing
KLS wants to thank Morning Lover and Founder, Cara Wenig, for today's "Together Talks" feature. Follow along for their journey with their social handles below!
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