I started a cookie business and scaled too quickly. We got caught up in a growth-at-all-costs mentality — here's how I turned it around.

Partake Foods founder, Denise Woodard, says storytelling has been a big part of her company's success. Denise Woodard Denise Woodard founded Partake Foods after her daughter's life-threatening food allergies. She says expanding too far, too wide, too fast in 2020 was almost deadly to the business. Woodard has raised millions in funding and credits storytelling for her success. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Denise Woodard, founder and CEO of Partake Foods. The following has been edited for length and clarity. I spent my career in consumer packaged goods and spent significant time at The Coca-Cola Company. Then my daughter Vivienne came along. She's 11 now, but right around her first birthday, we had a couple of scary incidents that alerted us to the fact that she had multiple life-threatening food allergies .