From $250K Loss to Mission-Driven Growth: Bradley Will on Building Mumbies, DTC Resilience & Thinking Bigger

What do you do when you lose $250,000 in inventory, miss Black Friday, and only have weeks of runway left? You build anyway. In this episode of Build Boldly, Pat Rodgers sits down with Bradley Will, founder and CEO of Mumbies, a Milwaukee-based direct-to-consumer dog chew brand supporting rescues and shelters.

Bradley shares the unfiltered story of transitioning from running a marketing agency to launching a physical product brand while navigating importing, fulfillment, warehousing, 3PL failures, and hand-packing orders in a 900 sq ft office.

Then the crisis hit.

Instead of folding, Bradley pivoted. Mumbies donated over 3,000 imperfect products (more than $50,000 retail value) to shelters and rescues, which turned a massive operational failure into a brand-defining moment rooted in mission.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• What it really takes to move from services to product
• How to manage DTC growth without relying on Amazon or big-box retail
• Lessons from the Generator accelerator program
• Why resilience builds enduring companies, not hype

If you’re building a product brand, navigating adversity, or trying to align business growth with real impact, this episode is for you.

As always, let’s build boldly.

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